Research: Treating Autism Appropriately

Scientific studies may be a useful tool in guiding parents to choose autism therapies that are likely to help the child and not hurt the child.

In this essay, the author described a day spent at a biomedical conference in England. The conference offered information about autism therapy. The author was upset because the therapies discussed at the conference had not been proven to work by scientific research studies. He also noted that there were no medical doctors practicing in the British National Health Service who gave talks at the conference. The author felt the atmosphere of the conference did not leave room for input from established doctors. The author said that, ideally, parents would choose therapies that have been shown scientifically to have a strong chance of helping the child and had few side effects or risks. In contrast to this, some children may be asked to go through testing and therapies that are hard on the child and have a low chance of success. Or worse, the children may be at risk for health problems from therapies that he believes are more risky, such as chelation therapy. The author also urged doctors to be cautious about prescribing therapy options that are not based on sound scientific research.