While perusing the articles on MSNBC.com, one entitled “Study Suggests Kids Can ‘Recover’ From Autism’ caught my eye. Being the parent of an autistic child myself, I was intrigued by the ramifications of such a statement. There are many views on the best way to tackle autism—from Jenny McCarthy’s outspoken promotion of alternative therapies including the gluten-free casein-free diet (GFCF) to fans of early intervention. No one knows for sure what works best for children with autism, and yet a new study is claiming that a small percentage— about ten percent— is able to completely recover from the disorder.
Cure vs. recovery
I would be willing to bet that most parents of autistic kids wish, at least in some capacity, that the diagnosis had never happened, or that there was something that they could have done to prevent it. Many people who read the aforementioned article or heard of the study results interpreted the information as being a cure for autism. There is no cure for autism. The medical world is still trying to uncover what causes autism and to decipher its many layers. When asked how recovery is different than a cure, McCarthy stated, “I look at autism like a bus accident, and you don’t become cured from a bus accident, but you can recover. “
Were they really autistic?
Autism, for those who are not familiar, is one of several diagnoses in the family of Pervasive Developmental disorders. Autism is characterized by a deficit in the areas of communication and social interaction. Children who exhibit milder characteristics are often diagnosed with PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder- Not Otherwise Specified), which means they still exhibit behaviors indicative of one of the disorders but they do not necessarily fall into a specific diagnosis, so they are lumped into a more general category. PDD-NOS is essentially “all that other stuff that doesn’t fit into one of the other categories.” Keeping that in mind, and with the knowledge that the rate of diagnosis is increasing rapidly, we have to consider that these kids may have been misdiagnosed. Were these 10% of ‘recovered’ autistic children actually autistic to begin with?
Deborah Fein, a psychology professor at the University of Connecticut, states that they were autistic, but are no longer autistic. Interestingly, it was reported on msnbc.com that many of the subjects fell within the mild portion of the spectrum and their IQs were above average. In addition, their motor development was within the normal range when they were two years old.
Behavior Treatment
Subjects in Fein’s study took part in behavior treatment for up for 40 hours a week, which may be largely responsible for the supposed ‘recovery.’ In fact, I read an article on Time.com that behavioral therapy is the only treatment that has really made a dent in the development of autistic children, yet the success rate of these therapies are still very low.
What do you think? Does this study give parents of autistic children false hope, or something to aim for?
