Some children can 'recover' from autism, but problems often

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Research in the past several years has shown that children can outgrow a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), once considered a lifelong condition. In a new study, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System have found that the vast majority of such children still have difficulties that require therapeutic and educational support. The study was published online today in the Journal of Child Neurology.


https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-03- ... blems.html

If my experience is anything to go by, many of those kids aren't "recovering" from autism at all - they're simply internalising how to hide it ("masking", "passing", etc.) If you bash into kid's heads that e.g. stimming is inappropriate behaviour, then some of them will learn to use will-power to stop doing it when anyone's looking - but that doesn't mean that they have lost the instinct to do it. This kind of "we can't see it any more, therefore it isn't there" thinking seems to be the primary "evidence" that behavioural therapies such as ABA are effective.

This completely ignores that "masking" can impose a huge cognitive load on one's mind, and can seriously affect one's sense of "self" and feeling of agency. I have said for a long time that being autistic isn't solely why I have suffered for so long with anxiety and depression - it's the pretending not to be that's the larger problem in many respects. Hence, the finding that these "recovered" children show signs of mental illness and other conditions does not surprise me in the least.

The same factors affect diagnosis for adults - many are turned away by GPs because they don't display any obvious external signs (especially when the symptoms of anxiety/depression are also present.) The fact that the article doesn't even mention this possibility is a very serious omission, in my opinion.

In essence, people "adjust"/"adapt" to their autism, rather than "recover" from it.

I am curious about the masking . Is that something people make a conscious effort to do? Wysiwyg with me and I would find it very hard to come over differently to people .

Why does it make your skin crawl ?

Balderdash. I agree with others who say that some can learn to adapt to a degree in order to "fit in", but that's hardly 'recovering'.

This "recovery" nonsense is dangerous. I can see it worsening the whole parents seeking snake-oil "cures" for their children. Therapy and behavior modification doesn't cure anything. It just teaches kids to hide, feel ashamed of themselves, or "sit still, and shut up"

Wait a bit and you'll find a new generation of "cured" adults who are depressed, anxious, anti-social, and miserable. I am speaking from personal experience here.

Dr. Shulman did not say they were recovered or cured but that they were in "essence recovered". "Recover" in an autism context has come to have a very nasty meaning. It views Autism as some sort of curse, disease, or doppelganger that has taken control of a normal cute child. What needs to be “recovered” is this supposed cute normal child. It was first used by Dr. Bruno Bettelheim in reference to “recovering” children from refrigerator mothers. Nowadays the word is prominently used by anti-vaxxers to justly all sorts of horrible quack treatments. While ABA is the “gold standard” Autism treatment in America many of us feel that behind the scientific jargon and positive language is the same view of autism as a horror that needs to be “recovered” from.

That so many obvious things pointed out above are ignored is telling. It shows the same desperation to cure autism that lies behind the appeal of snake oil salesmen selling quack cures.

Has anybody ever read Ivor Lovaas' study?

Supposedly, through his "Discrete Trial Training," many kids were "cured" of autism, and able to attend "mainstream" classes.

The subsequent results, though, didn't seem good for the study subjects. There was one person here who was part of his study.

Why can't the world just accept the fact we are what we are, and they should just get over it the same way they got over things like race, homosexuality and being left-handed? Not that there aren't still people who think all those things are wrong.

In my experience I have been accepted for what I am. But that carries a lot of limitations. I've never seen anything wrong with being helped to get around my neurological obstacles. Any more than being helped with my physical disability.

But I am in a different world I guess. Things like stimming and eye contact were way down the list of things to conquer. For me it was learning how to talk some and read and write and be able to look after myself somewhat.

I wonder how they can distinguish between people who are masking/passing and those who have actually recovered .