Autism Therapy: social withdrawal

This article reports that the behavior of some children with autism can be improved by high doses of vitamin B6 and magnesium.

This is a follow-up study to previous work showing that the withdrawal of vitamin B6 had negative influences on the behavior of children with autism. The first experiment in this study focuses on 44 children (3.5 to 16 years old) who had been diagnosed with â??autistic symptomsâ? (social withdrawal, stereotyped behavior, tantrums, and hypersensitivity to sensory stimulation). All children received vitamin B6 at a dose of 30 mg/kg body weight daily (about 545 mg daily for a 40-pound child) for two weeks; magnesium was also given to each child at several doses depending on body weight, but exact dose is not stated in the article. For 15 of the 44 children (34%), behavior improved during the treatment period, including increases in alertness, reductions in tantrums, and improved overall outlook on life. In 14 of these fifteen children, the improvements disappeared several weeks after the children stopped taking the supplements. The second experiment in this study was a well-controlled, double-blind experiment focusing on 21 of the children who had been included in the first study. As in the first experiment, the supplements were taken for two weeks, and these two weeks either followed or preceded placebo treatment. Ten of the children who had previously improved with the supplements also improved during the supplement treatment, and two of the children who had previously not responded to the supplements had improved behavior this time. There were no significant side effects.