GFCF diets and small kids with autism

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i don't know much about parents with ASD kids. but i will never ever try to make them feel guilty or attack them. i know the horrors i put my parents through and it feels terrible. so if that came across the wrong way somehow, i'm very sorry. i just wanted to point out how the principles underlying ABA are incredibly useful. and i demonstrated one piece of that in this thread.

i don't know how your world feels. i don't spend any time with ASD parents. if you had a carpenter posting here or a paris runway model or a nuclear scientist in here, none of them would know much about your world either, until they learned. maybe i'll stick around, but i am not sure i can because i have a lot of projects underway i need to do for business. if you guys need a lot of figuring out so i can talk in your language, i honestly may not have the time. i'm very sorry about that.

you know much more about my world since you have a child just like i was. it sucked. i would definitely love to help yours -- and every one else's ASD kids have a better life.

Um, in the parenting world, we use those terms, carrot and stick, quite differently.

Which is probably one of the communication problems we had.

our family does not do gfcf, nor do i believe we would benefit from it. my SO has done low carb on multiple occassions, and has been gluten free for months at a time with no difference in his behaviors/traits. my 5 yo autie still shows behaviors that are distinctly from his autism and were first seen as early as just a couple days old. for us, autism is clearly based in genetics and not a result of diet.

guywithas, i understand that you consider yourself "fixed", however i believe your posts in this thread show that there are some errors in your analysis of social interactions. for instance, i feel comfortable in saying that after my time here and reading enough of her posts, DW has shown herself to be accepting of the fact that other families may have an experience hers did not or doesnt believe in, therefore she suggested you write up your experience and make it available to others even tho she herself was uninterested. all you saw was the negative, not the potential positives of sharing your story so others who ARE interested would benefit.

humans are not binary beings, we cant be broken down into just two reactions. we are emotional and not always logical. therein lies the problem with trying to teach socialization. we dont always make sense. we lie, we pretend, we fantasize. sometimes we are arbitrary. there is no way to develop a completely accurate "social radar" as humans dont always react the same way in the same situation. not even NTs have that kind of radar. NTs too invest in bad relationships and get screwed over all the time.

My husband has gone GF over the last year. He is not diagnosed with AS, but he definitely has traits. The GF diet has helped with some gastro issues he's had and fatigue/foggy headed feeling. But, outside of that he hasn't seen any other changes. He is in the process of being tested for celiac's disease. If he has that, then I would consider testing and possible diet change for my son who is diagnosed AS.


My friend's daughter, who is not AS at all, was diagnosed with Celiac's over a year ago. After her GF diet, she had significant changes in some sensory issues she had been experiencing. The poor girl had to crawl into small dark spaces when she was in stimulating environments and couldn't handle being on anything that moved. Much of that has changed since she's become healthier. So, my experience, and what I've read, I think people who have true intolerances to gluten can definitely see differences in the way they feel when they change their diets. But, I think that most people whose children are on the spectrum will say that when they've instituted a special diet, if it works in making kids feel better, it isn't a "cure all". It's possible that people on the spectrum are just more prone to food intolerances all together.

I think the thing that is really hard when it comes to sorting out what's helping some of the sensory/other symptoms of AS is that many parents start their kids on multiple therapies at once.. How do you then decide what's working? My son has had OT for two years. We have seen significant improvement in fine motor skills and a lot of his sensory seeking behaviors have subsided. But, he's also two years older. Kids change a lot between the age of 3 and 5. Period. so, if I had also started him on a GF diet, how would I know that it was the diet that did the work? I know some people see results very quickly... and those are probably the cases where a real food intolerance exists. My son also gets Pragmatic Speech therapy. His ability to relate with peers, assert himself and engage in ongoing play has come along greatly. But, I'll never know if it's because he's getting older and something's just clicked or if it was an intervention that made the difference.

I think all of us parents just do the best we can. Many of us are not looking to "cure" our kids. I love the way my boy thinks and interacts with the world. I just want him to be able to interact with others in a way that makes him happy and successful.

Also, many of us have our kids on no medication at all. And, those of us who do have probably started doing so only after tons of consideration. Most parents don't take medicating their children lightly.