It is hard to say whether or not drug therapy helps children with autism who are inpatients in a psychiatric ward.
This study was designed to see whether children given drug therapy (atypical antipsychotics) as a psychiatric inpatient did better than those who were not given drug therapy. Atypical antipsychotics are used more often than typical antipsychotics because they cause fewer side effects. For example risperidone (Risperdal®) is an atypical antipsychotic that is given to children with autism. About 94% of inpatients with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) continued drug therapy upon discharge. The authors were not able to find out whether or not these children had a better outcome. They did note that drug therapy was most often given to children who had the most severe symptoms.
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