A Basic Guide to Well-Known Autism Therapies

Interventions to consider for kids with autism spectrum disorders

Because autism is a serious disability, and early intervention so important, families tend to do as much for their diagnosed children as they can fit into their lives and budgets. Here is a guide to the most well-known treatments and techniques for helping young children with autism make developmental gains, along with advice for evaluating these approaches and resources to find more information.

When it comes to helping their children with autism spectrum disorders, parents don't do just one thing. Therapies to schedule, service providers to examine, child development evaluations to perform and revisit—they all come in the plural form.

Autism is a spectrum disorder, which means that there are different kinds of autism; experts tend to say that no two people with the diagnosis are exactly alike. The disability centers on a person's inability to participate in the basics of human communication and interaction, so there's a lot to do to help a young child who receives an autism diagnosis: developing their use of words, cultivating their ability to relate to other people, helping them to understand their surroundings and get through the many transitions in a day—from home to school, and from learning time to playtime, from dinner time to bedtime.

Parents (most often moms) find themselves trading tips like business executives in a boardroom discussing project management strategies and service vendors. Who's the best provider for the job? What's the best use of our finite time and resources? What approach has the best return on investment?

There are no simple answers and so lots of families take a multi-pronged approach (read What to Do When Your Child Gets An Autism Diagnosis for more info). It turns out that the average number of simultaneous treatments that children with autism receive is five, according to preliminary statistics gathered from more than 4,000 parent surveys by the Interactive Autism Network, a project at the Kennedy Krieger Institute to "accelerate the pace of autism research."

The survey defined "treatments" broadly and included the following:

• Speech and language therapy
• Behavioral therapy, communications tools like special "social stories" that use pictures and symbols to explain an upcoming event
• The use of vitamins and drugs. (The Food and Drug Administration has approved the prescription drug Risperidone to treat children with autism and adolescents for aggressive behavior.)

See the full definition here.

The Calculations Families Must Make

It can take a team of family members and autism services experts to raise a child with autism because it's essential not just to get therapies, but to coordinate the various activities so they complement each other. And it's vital to evaluate a child's progress along the way, adjusting treatment plans as needed.

Services vary widely across the country, but the basics are these: state-based, federally-funded Early Intervention Programs provide mostly-free services to help children under three. When a child turns three, federal law calls for the local school district where a family lives to provide evaluations and services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Beyond these basics, the reality is that many families supplement what a state or school offers with privately arranged services.

Experience has shown that children who receive an autism diagnosis can make positive gains through intensive early intervention services. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) calls for 25 hours per week of such services when a doctor suspects a toddler could have autism.

Because the prevalence of reported autism cases has risen to one in every 150 children in the United States, and because of rising levels of media coverage, there's a lot of activity in the autism services arena. Parents new to the issues involved will find a great deal of information thrust at them, including promises of cures and testimonials by celebrities who suggest doing what they did will yield dramatic results in a relatively short time. Some alternative treatments are controversial because while scientific studies don't support their use, parents say their children do benefit from them.

Therapy Questions to Consider

It's natural to want to try anything and everything to help your child as soon as possible, but it pays to ask these questions when evaluating autism therapies:

• What are the expected benefits of using this approach? What are the potential problems of using this approach?
• What is the evidence that this approach works? Does the information only come from people who say it helps their kids? Are there scientific studies that examine the approach? What do parents who considered this approach before rejecting it say?
• How will using this approach fit into all the other efforts our family is making to help our child? Will it create a conflict with another effort, or complement it? Will using our time and money paying for it mean sacrificing something else in our lives that might be a better choice?

What follows is a brief guide to some of the most well-known autism therapies, with links on the web about these treatments, and sites to visit to get more information about raising a child with an autism spectrum disorder.

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