Is it possible to overcome autism

Additionally, Woods explained that adolescent psychiatrists may also consider medicines to address conditions that are frequently seen in ASD including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD , oppositional defiance disorder ODD , obsessive-compulsive disorder OCD , or depression. When it comes to specific treatment options, one treatment approach many therapists, schools, and healthcare providers use is applied behavior analysis ABA. The goal, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC , is to encourage positive behaviors to teach and improve a variety of skills.

Other forms of treatment involve:. While the process to find resources can sometimes feel overwhelming, remember there are trained people who can benefit both those with ASD and their loved ones.

Woods also noted that research studies are underway to investigate the effect of lifestyle low-stimulation environments and dietary modifications such as vegan or gluten-free diets on children with ASD. In addition to lifestyle and dietary modifications, researchers are also looking at several other studies such as the ability to detect autism during a pregnancy, the impact your genes have on an autism diagnosis, and the future of cord blood-derived therapies.

Here are some ways for you to help, support, and encourage the development of skills in your loved one. Communicating with the doctor, therapist, teachers, and other healthcare providers can help make your daily tasks a lot easier. For parents, this can mean asking for suggestions to continue practicing the skills your child is learning in therapy, which makes it easier for them to be more successful.

What you do at home can affect the severity of some symptoms. One suggestion is to keep the environment predictable and familiar. Another is to have a routine. When facing a new situation, go over in advance what might happen. This may help make the transition go a lot smoother. Bring comfort items along that are familiar. Communicate information in a simple, yet effective way. The more clear, concise, and concrete you can be, the better.

And wait. Give them time to respond as you listen and observe. For more on communicating with children, read this resource from the Raising Children Network in Australia. Continuing the tour of his suburban New York bedroom, he points out his Packers-themed alarm clock, his soccer trophy, his Boy Scout trophy and then the big reveal: a homemade foam box in Packers green and gold.

His autism, they suspected, might prevent any such future. Even more striking was how much less social he was compared with his brother. She remembers a friend trying in vain to get Alex to laugh — jumping up and down, gesturing wildly, making silly faces. Their pediatrician, suspecting autism, recommended early intervention.

When Alex was only 9 months old, his parents arranged for speech therapy, physical therapy and other special education services. Alex was formally diagnosed with autism when he was 2.

Like many children with autism, he had intense reactions to certain sensations, and mundane procedures such as getting a haircut were traumatic — the feel of the scissors on his neck made him writhe and scream. But she was more optimistic, putting her hopes in an intensive program of behavioral therapy.

Alex made steady progress — first in one-on-one therapy that required as many as 25 or 30 hours a week, then in therapeutic preschool and elementary schools and, finally, in a mainstream classroom. This year, his developmental pediatrician, autism specialist Lisa Shulman , judged that he no longer meets the criteria for an autism diagnosis. Today, Alex is funny, gregarious and obsessed with sports.

He is keenly self-aware and socially tuned in, chattering about the status hierarchy on the school bus and explaining that scoring soccer goals only occasionally is actually better than scoring in every game, because then it feels more special to high five your teammates. Most children with autism will forever have the disorder.

But a handful of studies in the past three years indicate that for reasons no one understands, a minority of children, like Alex, shed the core symptoms necessary for an autism diagnosis.

Shulman, who runs a large clinical autism program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, says most of these children face residual learning or emotional problems.

T he notion of recovery from autism is both tantalizing and fraught. His finding drove support for early, intensive intervention for children with autism. ABA, first used as a treatment for autism in the s, relies on principles of learning theory, including prompting and rewarding desirable behaviors such as social interaction and minimizing behaviors, such as repetitive movements, that interfere with learning, Many forms of autism therapy are based on these principles.

Some children given these intensive treatments improve more than others. Today, autism is generally considered to be a lifelong condition. Nonetheless, in the modern history of autism studies, researchers noticed that some children — estimates vary widely, from about 3 to 25 percent — seemed to lose the social and communication impairments and repetitive behaviors that define autism.

But they often assumed either that most of those children had been misdiagnosed and never had autism to begin with, or that they continued to have autism with less obvious symptoms. To be included in this group, the children had to have had a verified early autism diagnosis and no remaining autism symptoms. Fein also excluded ambiguous cases — for example, those who had never had a language delay or who were still receiving special education to address social or communication impairments.

Although the members of this group are similar to their typically developing peers in their communication, facial recognition and language abilities, Fein wondered whether they might differ in subtle ways.

To find out, she and her colleagues have conducted a series of follow-up analyses. One analysis suggested that some young people in the optimal outcome group are slightly more socially awkward than their peers — but they are perceived as more likable than those who either never had autism or who still have autism but are high-functioning.

Another analysis revealed a few minor differences in language. More evidence that some children can outgrow an autism diagnosis followed. In a study in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry , Lord and her colleagues reported results from 85 children with autism they had followed from age 2 through 19 years.

Fortunately, scientists are starting to do those studies. For example, Catherine Lord, director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at Weill Cornell Medical College, has been following a group of about people with autism from the time they were diagnosed at age two through their early 20s. Study participants completed a large battery of tests every few years as children and again at age 18, and parents have been filling out questionnaires every year.

Like Kelley and her colleagues, Lord has found that a handful of participants lose their autism symptoms. They are also functioning well in daily life, holding down part-time jobs while attending college. A paper presenting these results is currently under consideration at a peer-reviewed journal. Although Lord's study has not resolved the question of why some people with autism improve radically, it has found early signs that may help identify those who will.

Parents whose children show these early improvements have reason to be hopeful about prognosis. Interestingly, neither Lord nor Kelley found that those with the best outcomes received more behavioral treatment than the others, as one might expect.

This finding does not mean that behavioral treatment is ineffective for autism—in fact, many studies suggest the opposite is true.

Researchers simply do not yet know how the amount and type of treatment relate to prognosis. For example, applied behavioral analysis, which focuses on using reinforcement to help children learn and attend to another person, could be especially effective for some youngsters, whereas social skills training, which emphasizes capabilities such as holding a conversation and turn taking, might help others. Similarly, some children might require much more intensive intervention to make gains.

The unpredictable effect of treatment could be related to underlying genetic differences; autism most likely has many variations, rather than a single genetic cause.

She firmly cautions parents against bankrupting themselves or running themselves emotionally ragged trying to get help for their child, because there may be factors leading to better outcomes that are completely outside parental control. As exciting as these positive outcomes are, we do not yet know if they will last. As people with autism begin to face the challenges of adulthood, old symptoms might recur and new ones could surface.

Studies of adults with autism have consistently found that many struggle to live independently, get and keep a job, and form friendships and romantic relationships. Of course, people with autism can thrive even if they don't recover.

Can Children with Autism Recover?