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Early Intervention in Babies May Eliminate Autism Symptoms by Toddlerhood

49 points by tokenadult 12y ago

jeffdavis 12y ago
Tiny study (7 infants), no control group.
- tedivm 12y ago
  Are you sure you're reading the right paper? They specifically mention the control group in the article and make comparisons between the different group's responses.
  - cmkrnl 12y ago
    Comment by Alice Walton, the author of the article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/09/09/early-intervention-in-babies-may-eliminate-autism-symptoms-by-toddlerhood/?commentId=comment_blogAndPostId/blog/comment/1543-13071-2418 http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/09/09/early-in... They actually gave all 7 the therapy. There were controls but it wasn’t really random assignment. They definitely need to do a larger study to look into it more (which they will), but it seems promising as a pilot study.
  - jeffdavis 12y ago
    Honestly, I read through the article pretty quickly and I missed that there was some attempt at a control. The statement that mislead me was "Most of the children in the study, six out of seven, caught up in all of their learning skills and their language...", which seems like a strange thing to say if there was a control group (aren't the control group also a part of the study?). There were enough red flags that I'm pretty sure this was not a very scientifically robust study. For instance, even for a very small sample, wouldn't you still say how many out of the control group caught up (e.g. 2 out of the 7 control group members). Also, I wonder if the person evaluating the symptoms knew which were the control versus test subjects?
mpyne 12y ago
I hope this helps as many children out there as possible. But I'm actually more worried that this, left as it is, is just going to be used by mothers and fathers of children with autism, or the adults around them, as an indictment that they weren't "good enough parents". This was a common refrain leveled at mothers of children with mental illnesses not that long ago, and it would be unfortunate indeed if we let that type of accusation creep back into popular wisdom, to the extent that it's unfounded.
- tokenadult 12y ago
  Your concern is well founded, insofar as onlookers of other people's parenting are all too quick to blame parents for all bad characteristics of the children. But if further research shows parents whose infants are at risk for development of autistic signs how to nudge the children's development in the direction of more communication and ability to engage in self-care, I think most parents can be trusted to take research-based advice to help their children. AFTER EDIT: Here are some more links with news about the currently reported study. http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/09/6690500/uc-davis-study-breaks-ground-on.html http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/09/6690500/uc-davis-study-brea... http://time.com/3305027/autism-symptoms-disappeared-with-behavioral-therapy-in-babies/ http://time.com/3305027/autism-symptoms-disappeared-with-beh... The link below is a PubMed link to an earlier journal publication by the same research group. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4023017/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4023017/
  - mpyne 12y ago
    I am 100% not trying to say we shouldn't pursue better remedies (or even cures). I am trying to say that we should be careful in how we phrase (and understand) these success stories. For instance there were 6 success out of a group of 7, which is wonderful news. But that still means there was 1 "failure"... were the parents to blame? Did they apply the "cure" wrong? Or was this an instance of a technique not having 100% applicability. This technique is far too late for my autistic child, but this is exactly the kind of question I would think a parent of autistic children would have, not to mention their friends and relatives who usually have even less insight into the state of autism research but who do remember headlines involving "cures for autism".
Nursie 12y ago
So before I even read this article - is this a real, scientifically sound, proven way for this to happen? Or is this woo, hope, prayer 'biomed', quackery and other nonsense? Because everyone and their grandmother has a 'cure' for 'recovering' autistic kids, but most of it is bullshit bordering on abuse.
- tedivm 12y ago
  UC Davis is a fairly well known and respected school. They do actual research, which gets published in peer reviewed journals (as much as that matters these days).
trhway 12y ago
"Early Start focuses on engaging a child’s attention in everyday activities with the parents – focus on the parents’ faces and voices, interactions between parent and child that foster joy and smiling in both parent and child, the parent’s imitation of the infant’s vocalizations and actions, and using toys to support a child’s social interaction." sound like any child would benefit from it. And if it is enough to move a child above the autism threshold - that's just great. That also bring question about the role of technology for parents who can't do that for one reason or another - can a computer/robot or a remote Mechanical Turk or some other technological way substitute the parent here, at least partially?
araes 12y ago
My sister used to be part of the autism treatment programs funded by BC up in Canada, and I was honestly amazed how much the right kind of attention and order made in autistic kids lives. Strong cause and effect relationships for reward / punishment, time degrading incentives for participating in "normal" behaviors, firm willed discipline when they regressed to earlier outbursts or triggers, and a steady diet of signals for what is "ok" or not without smothering or coddling. Hell of a lot of work for her when they were pre-teens, but if they can get on it early, and produce these kinds of shifts when kids are still young? Could be awesome. Now just need a bigger sample than 7 kids.
whiddershins 12y ago
An encouraging idea, and I hope they get somewhere with it. But how can they assert with confidence that they've successfully treated a condition for which diagnosis at such a young age isn't accepted? Quite possibly 6 of the 7 children would have lost their symptoms anyway. The study was not random, controlled, or blind.
otakucode 12y ago
Did I just miss it or did they completely not even mention how many infants who are 'symptomatic' naturally grow out of these deficiencies without developing autism? Without knowledge of that number, and whether this represents a statistically significant improvement, the findings are completely meaningless and honestly quite dishonest.
- wwkeyboard 12y ago
  They also didn't link to the original study, where you could find this information. There are four links in the article, and they mention the original journal(but not the edition), and they don't link to the article. This seems like terrible journalism.

49 points by tokenadult 12y ago

jeffdavis 12y ago

Tiny study (7 infants), no control group.

tedivm 12y ago
Are you sure you're reading the right paper? They specifically mention the control group in the article and make comparisons between the different group's responses.
- cmkrnl 12y ago
  Comment by Alice Walton, the author of the article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/09/09/early-intervention-in-babies-may-eliminate-autism-symptoms-by-toddlerhood/?commentId=comment_blogAndPostId/blog/comment/1543-13071-2418 http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/09/09/early-in... They actually gave all 7 the therapy. There were controls but it wasn’t really random assignment. They definitely need to do a larger study to look into it more (which they will), but it seems promising as a pilot study.
- jeffdavis 12y ago
  Honestly, I read through the article pretty quickly and I missed that there was some attempt at a control. The statement that mislead me was "Most of the children in the study, six out of seven, caught up in all of their learning skills and their language...", which seems like a strange thing to say if there was a control group (aren't the control group also a part of the study?). There were enough red flags that I'm pretty sure this was not a very scientifically robust study. For instance, even for a very small sample, wouldn't you still say how many out of the control group caught up (e.g. 2 out of the 7 control group members). Also, I wonder if the person evaluating the symptoms knew which were the control versus test subjects?

mpyne 12y ago

I hope this helps as many children out there as possible. But I'm actually more worried that this, left as it is, is just going to be used by mothers and fathers of children with autism, or the adults around them, as an indictment that they weren't "good enough parents". This was a common refrain leveled at mothers of children with mental illnesses not that long ago, and it would be unfortunate indeed if we let that type of accusation creep back into popular wisdom, to the extent that it's unfounded.

tokenadult 12y ago
Your concern is well founded, insofar as onlookers of other people's parenting are all too quick to blame parents for all bad characteristics of the children. But if further research shows parents whose infants are at risk for development of autistic signs how to nudge the children's development in the direction of more communication and ability to engage in self-care, I think most parents can be trusted to take research-based advice to help their children. AFTER EDIT: Here are some more links with news about the currently reported study. http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/09/6690500/uc-davis-study-breaks-ground-on.html http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/09/6690500/uc-davis-study-brea... http://time.com/3305027/autism-symptoms-disappeared-with-behavioral-therapy-in-babies/ http://time.com/3305027/autism-symptoms-disappeared-with-beh... The link below is a PubMed link to an earlier journal publication by the same research group. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4023017/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4023017/
- mpyne 12y ago
  I am 100% not trying to say we shouldn't pursue better remedies (or even cures). I am trying to say that we should be careful in how we phrase (and understand) these success stories. For instance there were 6 success out of a group of 7, which is wonderful news. But that still means there was 1 "failure"... were the parents to blame? Did they apply the "cure" wrong? Or was this an instance of a technique not having 100% applicability. This technique is far too late for my autistic child, but this is exactly the kind of question I would think a parent of autistic children would have, not to mention their friends and relatives who usually have even less insight into the state of autism research but who do remember headlines involving "cures for autism".

Nursie 12y ago

So before I even read this article - is this a real, scientifically sound, proven way for this to happen? Or is this woo, hope, prayer 'biomed', quackery and other nonsense? Because everyone and their grandmother has a 'cure' for 'recovering' autistic kids, but most of it is bullshit bordering on abuse.

tedivm 12y ago
UC Davis is a fairly well known and respected school. They do actual research, which gets published in peer reviewed journals (as much as that matters these days).

trhway 12y ago

"Early Start focuses on engaging a child’s attention in everyday activities with the parents – focus on the parents’ faces and voices, interactions between parent and child that foster joy and smiling in both parent and child, the parent’s imitation of the infant’s vocalizations and actions, and using toys to support a child’s social interaction." sound like any child would benefit from it. And if it is enough to move a child above the autism threshold - that's just great. That also bring question about the role of technology for parents who can't do that for one reason or another - can a computer/robot or a remote Mechanical Turk or some other technological way substitute the parent here, at least partially?

araes 12y ago

My sister used to be part of the autism treatment programs funded by BC up in Canada, and I was honestly amazed how much the right kind of attention and order made in autistic kids lives. Strong cause and effect relationships for reward / punishment, time degrading incentives for participating in "normal" behaviors, firm willed discipline when they regressed to earlier outbursts or triggers, and a steady diet of signals for what is "ok" or not without smothering or coddling. Hell of a lot of work for her when they were pre-teens, but if they can get on it early, and produce these kinds of shifts when kids are still young? Could be awesome. Now just need a bigger sample than 7 kids.

whiddershins 12y ago

An encouraging idea, and I hope they get somewhere with it. But how can they assert with confidence that they've successfully treated a condition for which diagnosis at such a young age isn't accepted? Quite possibly 6 of the 7 children would have lost their symptoms anyway. The study was not random, controlled, or blind.

otakucode 12y ago

Did I just miss it or did they completely not even mention how many infants who are 'symptomatic' naturally grow out of these deficiencies without developing autism? Without knowledge of that number, and whether this represents a statistically significant improvement, the findings are completely meaningless and honestly quite dishonest.

wwkeyboard 12y ago
They also didn't link to the original study, where you could find this information. There are four links in the article, and they mention the original journal(but not the edition), and they don't link to the article. This seems like terrible journalism.