The drug memantine may help children with autism.

The author of this article reviewed and commented on the Erickson et al study. He noted that the Erickson study had many problems, such as small size, open-label, and lack of good measures of changes in autism. Still, the study was good because it asked the question of whether drugs used to treat Alzheimer's disease can be used to treat autism. The results of the study are good enough to suggest that it would be worthwhile to do a larger study looking at whether or not memantine therapy can help children with autism. He suggests that this may be the first of many studies designed to find a drug to treat autism.