What is CAMI?
CAMI is a brief, game-like task that measures how well children can copy movements. The researchers found that children with autism often scored lower on this imitation task compared to children without autism or those with ADHD.
Promising Aspects
Important Limitations to Consider
What This Means for Families
While CAMI shows potential, it's far from being a definitive autism test. Autism is complex, and no single test can capture all its aspects. A thorough evaluation by experienced professionals is still crucial.
Looking Ahead
For CAMI to be truly useful, researchers need to:
The Bigger Picture
Improving autism diagnosis is important, but we must be cautious about relying too heavily on any single method. The goal should be to develop a range of tools that, when used together, can provide a more accurate and fair assessment for all children.
Remember, every child is unique. A test score alone can never capture the full picture of a child's abilities and needs.
Santra, R., Pacheco, C., Crocetti, D., Vidal, R., Mostofsky, S. H., & Tunçgenç, B. (2025). Evaluating Computerised Assessment of Motor Imitation (CAMI) for identifying autism-specific difficulties not observed for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or neurotypical development. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 1–8. doi:10.1192/bjp.2024.235