Revolutionizing autism diagnosis using hybrid model for autism spectrum disorder phenotyping

Abstract

The growing prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) necessitates efficient data-driven screening solutions to complement traditional diagnostic methods, which often suffer from subjectivity and limited scalability. This study introduces a hybrid ensemble model combining logistic regression (LR) and naive Bayes (NB) for ASD classification across four age groups (toddlers, children, adolescents, and adults) using behavioral screening datasets. By integrating statistical learning and probabilistic inference, the proposed model effectively captured behavioral markers, ensuring a higher classification accuracy and improved generalization. The experimental evaluation demonstrated its superior performance, achieving 94.24% accuracy and 99.40% area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), surpassing those of individual classifiers and existing approaches. This artificial intelligence (AI)-driven framework offers a scalable, cost-effective, and accessible solution for both clinical and telemedicine-based ASD screening, facilitating early intervention and risk assessment. This study underscores the transformative potential of AI in neurodevelopmental diagnostics, paving the way for more efficient and widely deployable autistic screening technologies.