She didn’t say if the kid had had ABA at all, or floortime or if his parents had biomedded him. My guess would be that they he had some interventions, but I would guess that no reasonable person would have attributed his change to those treatments. Lord certainly wasn’t saying, “Here’s what these parents did, I suggest everyone give it a try.” She made no comment even related to that.

This is the gist of it:

“There is a substantial body of Level-II-1 and lower quality evidence that suggests EIBI is an effective treatment approach. However, since there exists Level-I, Level-II-1 and other evidence that EIBI is not terribly effective, and also considering the lack of adult outcome studies, the statements by the Surgeon General of the United States and the American Academy of Pediatrics seem premature. Indeed, the trial which appears to be the most methodologically rigorous to date (Smith et al., 2000) was largely unsuccessful.”

Yes.

But before we get into that, I want to know what reason I have for engaging you in debate?

Whenever you post here it is one post and thten you never respond. You don’t allow my comments on your own blog. Why should I engage you? What is productive about me doing so?

“Most parents want to help their autistic children and aren’t interested in semantics.”

Hmmm, not sure thats true. I agree most parents want to help their kids. I am not sure they are not interested ini what you call ‘semantics’ and what I think of as ‘accurate definition’.

As for the rest of your comment, I’m not sure what point you’re making exactly. Are you saying the AAP definition of recovery is one we should be adhering to?

Looking back at pictures with his HUGE bald head. The ignoring of the camera and other things we thought of later… it was very obvious in hindsight. But we were watching for the big signs… the head banging, meltdowns etc of the eldest so, although we knew something was up… they weren’t certain what that “up” was yet.

Also with my eldest first dx was non-verbal mild PDD. Second 6mths later was “speech and language delayed with global delays” b/c they didn’t know where on the spectrum – if he was on the spectrum – he’d be. The dx now reads “a mild form of ASD” – needed to get services of course. But the Dev Ped says he had NVLD w/ S/L delay. Delay being… speech/language is coming and normally… just delayed. Now… he’s pretty much NVLD… bugger when they master sarcasm and little white lies and you cheer b/c they made the milestone and groan b/c now you have to discipline it :)

S.

Angela, I’m not sure I’m saying Evan was never autistic. I don’t want to disenfranchise him on such scant data :) – to me it all adds up to a situation where no knowledge seems to being passed off and accepted as factual.

As far as “recovery,” it seems to be something people don’t want to define. I and others I know have tried to get a major autism organization we are members of to define the word, especially when they publish articles about how this or that biomedical intervention led to it, but, they won’t.

A lot of people would consider my child to be “recovered” based on some of the above descriptions. I think my child is simply an awesome, brave, cool autistic kid who is doing her damndest to navigate her way in this difficult world. I love her, I support and help her, and I admire her strength. What I don’t do is try to “cure” her of being herself.

“When my younger son entered the Siblings Study at LADDERS three years ago, Mass General Hospital, he was first examined by Dr. Margaret Baumann. One of the many questions I asked was, “Is ‘recovery’ possible, or even real?” She said she had never seen an actual child who was no longer autistic. There were a handful of kids she saw over the many years of her practice who may have “lost” the diagnosis, basically they no longer needed an IEP and intensive intervention or an aide in school, but they were still autistic in their way of thinking and perceiving the world. They had learned skills and strategies very well so that they blended in with NTs.

I also asked her about what percentage of children in the Siblings Study they were seeing with “regressive” autism. She said, “None”. She said when they reviewed the videotapes from the parents and watched the children’s development from birth, there were always subtle signs that pointed to autism, but were missed by parents and even clinicians/physicians who were not trained in child development. The atypical development was present from the first year of life, not just after vaccinations in the second year of life. It becomes more obvious in the second year of life when the child doesn’t progress in development when compared to NT children of the same age.”

My 8yr old appears normal now – he went from non-verbal mild-PDD to a dx of NVLD. He appears “normal”.

He has a terrible time with social skills and abstract thinking. Those issues are being dealt with.

He’s not “cured” nor “recovered”... he’s just doing AMAZING