The following is transcribed by me from the first mp3 file for May 28th. This part starts around 41 minutes 24 seconds.
Ms. Ricciardella: Do children with autism, in general, improve?
Dr. Catherine Lord: Absolutely.
Ricciardella: What percentage? Do you know?
Lord: I mean I think that all children with autism improve in some ways, and how much is highly variable.
Ricciardella: Would that include children who have a regression in autism? Do they improve as well?
Lord: Yes.
Ricciardella: Do we know why?
Lord: No. I mean, some of the improvement seems to be getting back on developmental course. It’s like asking why do normal kids learn to do the things that they do. We can describe how they learn things but that process of how do kids learn to walk or talk when no one is really teaching them, we don’t know. And that’s the same for autism. We know that behavioral treatments make some difference but it’s a relatively small amount of difference compared to that force of development.
I’m not so sure that it’s only behavioral treatments that make “some” difference, but I agree that whatever therapy or teaching is provided, professional or parental, it’s the “force of development” that is the main thing that causes children to…. develop, which I believe is another way of saying, “improve.” I don’t believe there’s anything that one can do to speed up that force of development. Though I think it’s obvious that judicious use of reasonable kinds of therapies would probably help any autistic child make full use of what abilities he or she has to work with at any given point in time.
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