There are many remedies for autism touted as a cure all or panacea for many things and sometimes even everything related to the disorder. Many of these remedies, which often prey on desperate parents who want the best for their child, are promoted by both the well intentioned yet poor scientists, and those seeking monetary gain and/or fame.
When Deborah Fein < http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2010/09/recovery-from-autism/ > and others published Can Children with Autism Recover? If So How? < http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19009353 >; in 2008 she believed that with the right intervention at the right time 10-20 % of children with autism or ASD symptoms could recover, or have their symptoms significantly ameliorated. Additional research into new therapies aligned with behavioral (such as ABA) or developmental (such as DIR Floortime) or a combination (such as the Denver Model) have improved outcomes for many children since then.
It is however; crucial for any parent to understand that autism really is a spectrum of disorders with common symptoms but an extremely wide variety of causes to include many interacting risk factors and casual events. There is no one cure because there is not just one singular homogeneous disorder.
What appears to work for one child could easily be more of a coincidence than a cause and effect resulting from the touted cure. Even when you have scientific replication of a particular intervention or treatment and a subsequent cure or significant amelioration, you may have only found something that works for one particular subgroup of the disorder. For example, research at the UC Davis Mind Institute has found a particular biological intervention which brings about significant amelioration in about 1% of children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For anyone to tout this as a cure all (which UC Davis does not do) for ASD would be incredibly irresponsible.
We do know that a large percentage of children with ASD also have co-occurring gastrointestinal problems which are alleviated through nutrition; though, this is rarely a complete cure for their ASD. We also know that good nutrition in general benefits everyone.
One of the manifestations of poor science and wild speculation which is prevalent in the ASD world but has probably been around since soon after the beginning of mankind is the tendency to jump to unfounded and unproven connections. Some of these speculations are as wild as saying that since medication A helps a particular person with heart disease it will also help someone with lung cancer because the two organs are housed closely together in the body. Though sometimes science has found another benefit for a particular medication, such a wild leap of speculation could be extremely dangerous without rigorous scientific examination.
As a youth I have a vivid memory of my parents sitting in the living room of our home with friends discussing medications which seemed to help them and offering to share those medications so another could try it out. At the time I had the thought, ‘no wonder kids have drug problems.’ There is sometimes a fairly cavalier attitude about medication, interventions, and even some supplements, which can be understandably caused by desperation on the part of some and laziness on the part of others. The use of good Critical Thinking <; http://criticalthinkinginfoanddiscussion.blogspot.com/ >; skills as well as asking for feedback from a wide variety of professionals in the field can be helpful in understanding the difference between junk science and wild speculative claims and solid research.
Are there interventions which can significantly improve the symptoms of ASD for many children? Yes.
Are there interventions which can significantly improve the root causes of a few with ASD? Possibly.
Are there interventions which can significantly improve behavioral issues for most children with ASD? Yes.
However; remember ASD is not one singular homogeneous disorder and any claim to cure or significantly ameliorate the root causes should be viewed with extreme caution.
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