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But what really troubled me about both of these books is the obsessive nature of each author's focus on her child's autism - and the assumption, on the part of both authors, that all parents should be equally obsessed.

Not only is it fiscally, personally and physically dangerous to become obsessive about autism treatments, but the the promise of a cure is disingenuous. The probability of a child with autism being literally cured is astronomically small (though of course symptoms can lessen and all children gain new skills). By playing on parents guilt and anxiety, though, it's not too hard to push families to the brink of financial, physical and personal collapse.

Emergency professionals are taught that the first person they must ensure is safe from harm at the scene of an emergency is themselves for the simple reason that if they are injured they are no longer in a position to help anyone else. The same holds true for parents for if they don’t protect their own wellbeing and collapse from the strain emotionally or if they drive themselves into financial ruin, they are no longer in a position to help their children with autism or to help their children who do not have autism.

Ever the most heroic emergency worker can be confronted by their personal limitations and, to be a good emergency worker, they must accept them so that “all is not lost” in the process of “trying to save everything.” For our families to survive, we parents of children with autism must also be realistic when facing our own personal limitations. No one else can face them for us.

The use of gestures, such as pointing, has been recognised as an important aspect of child development for some time. For example, the amount a child gestures at a young age predicts her later vocabulary size.

Rowe and Goldin-Meadow found that parents and children from poorer backgrounds (i.e. of low socioeconomic status) used a narrower range of gestures when they interacted with each other compared with parents and children from more affluent backgrounds.

Combining this observation with the earlier finding about the role of parental gesturing, implies but by no means proves, that one reason children from poor backgrounds develop smaller vocabularies is because their parents gestured to them less when they were younger.

The American Psychological Association has issued a position paper on FC, stating that "Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that facilitated communication is not a scientifically valid technique for individuals with autism or mental retardation" and describing FC as "a controversial and unproved communicative procedure with no scientifically demonstrated support for its efficacy."

Frontline Program on facilitated communication:

Parents are grateful to discover that their child is not hopelessly retarded but is either normal or above normal in intelligence. FC allows their children to demonstrate their intelligence; it provides them with a vehicle heretofore denied them.

Autism gives many unique traits to an individual, and many of these people go on to do great things (it is said Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, and other innovators and scientists had forms of autism). I can’t speak for others - maybe they do want to rid themselves of their condition. But as for the parents and individuals making the decision, think about it: do you honestly want a cure that is going to change the individual you are?

The authors found that 11% of the typically developing children and 31% of the ASD had a documented visual impairment (myopia, astigmatism, etc). This difference was statistically significant. That is, children with ASD were significantly more likely than typically developing children to have these conditions. Children with autism also displayed significantly poorer visual acuity (but within normal limits), and lower convergence. Convergence refers to the process by which the eyes move towards each other to maintain focus on approaching or close-range objects.

The findings of reduced visual acuity in children with autism when compared to typically developing children contradict previous studies that have shown enhanced visual acuity in autism. This brings us to a major limitation of this study that was correctly noted by the authors.

Limited convergence therefore would be associated with more limited depth perception. I find this intriguing because the neuropsychological profile of children with high functioning autism is often very similar to what is observed in kids with non-verbal learning disabilities (including relative weaknesses in motor-visual functioning). In addition, many parents with children with ASD report that their kids have trouble with sports and other physical activities. I thus wonder how much the reduced convergence observed in ASD may affect the motor-visual functioning in autism.

Since most of the ways we diagnose autism are based on behavior, we can't rely on biological, structural, or chemical findings to determine if a treatment is working. We primarily measure success based on a patient's change, or lack thereof, in behavior.

The behavioral changes produced by the few effective treatments make life in social settings (including the home) possible, but we have no idea whether they have any effect on the underlying cause (or causes) of autism or whether they even make severely affected patients feel better.

One method intended to help, "facilitated communication," is based on the idea that a sensitive facilitator will hold the hand of a patient over a kind of Ouija board. She will then help the patient respond to questions by sensing his intention and helping guide his hand to spell out answers. Rigorous studies have shown that the spelled-out answers come from the unconscious (or, worse, the conscious) mind of the facilitator. Nonetheless, the practice is still in use, and I know parents who are utterly convinced that it is valid and useful. Frankly, something important did happen when facilitated communication was introduced to my patients: They improved, they brightened, they became more social and more interactive, and they seemed, somehow, happier, even though facilitated communication didn't actually translate their thoughts into words. I'll come back to "why" in a minute.

The NLP became synonymous with motivation and motivation is pivotal in teaching children with autism to respond to multiple questions.

1988 was the first time the word pivotal was used to describe this method. It was referred to previously as the NLP. It is considered a behavior intervention with similarities to the Lovaas method/ABA. 

Why would you say PRT is more effective than other therapies