RASTREAMENTO DO TRANSTORNO DO ESPECTRO AUTISTA (TEA) EM UNIDADE DE SAÚDE DA FAMÍLIA EM CAMPINA GRANDE NA PARAÍBA

Childhood is the initial phase of human life, it is a crucial phase of development, Childhood is a crucial phase of development, marked by rapid and significant changes in several areas, such as physical, cognitive, emotional and social. Thus, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects neurological development, characterized by difficulties in communication and social interaction, mainly affecting interpersonal communication and socialization, which have their first signs during childhood. The “Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers Revised” (M-CHAT-R) scale is constructed based on a list of symptoms present in children with ASD, and is a screening instrument for moderate to severe cases, easily applied by primary care professionals. This work is justified by the need to establish, through a simple instrument, the early diagnosis of cases with moderate or high risk for developing ASD, in addition to the quantitative related to the prevalence of cases with high risk while providing information for parents and guardians. Thus, the aim is to identify, through the M-CHAT-R, the risk that children between 16 and 30 months have for developing ASD. This is a research with a quantitative and descriptive approach involving children between 16 and 30 months who underwent childcare at a family health unit in Campina Grande - PB between April and December 2024, using the screening instrument called “Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers Revised”, whose data were statistically evaluated by the IBM SPP Statistics version 2 program. A total of 15 children participated in the study, the results revealed that 20% (3) of the children were identified as suspected cases of ASD, and they were referred to a specialist in order to obtain an adequate diagnosis, and 80% (12) obtained a negative screening, there were common scored items among the positive ones and the sample itself was small to associate positivity with age, however, with the expanded Shapiro-Wilk test it was inferred that ASD was not influenced by age. The study revealed that the M-CHAT-R instrument is demonstrably an effective screening instrument for ASD, in addition to being a low-cost object, and easily applied in primary care.