Early Detection of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) with the Help of Data Mining Tools

Abstract

Autism is a disorder of neurobiological origin that originates a different course in the development of verbal and nonverbal communication, social interactions, the flexibility of behavior, and interests. The results obtained offer relevant information to reflect on the practices currently used in assessing the development of children and the detection of ASD and suggest the need to strengthen the training of health professionals in aspects such as psychology and developmental disorders. This study, based on genuine and current facts, used data from 292 children with an autism spectrum disorder. The input dataset has 20 characteristics, and the output dataset has one attribute. The output property indicates whether or not a certain person has autism. The research study first and foremost performed data pretreatment activities such as filling in missing data gaps in the data collection, digitizing categorical data, and normalizing. The features were then clustered using $k$ -means and $x$ -means clustering methods, then artificial neural networks and a linguistic strong neurofuzzy classifier were used to classify them. The outcomes of each strategy were examined, and their respective performances were compared.