Norah – my son has done just that – develop – at his own pace, in his own way, and has benefitted from great therapy and education and a loving and supportive family. And he’s happy with all he has so far.

Some people seem to think autistic children don’t develop (unless ). And anything you teach them and anything fun they do or any sport they attend, etc, is ‘treatment’ too, instead of what you’d call it for typical kids. That just gets really tiresome.

Of course, with the right assistance with things that are difficult for you, you’ll learn faster and probably a lot easier. For instance, I could have really used that help with riding my bicycle that Kristina posted about earlier. Would probably have cut the time in half that it took for me to learn to ride one now.

And if you’re actually allergic or sensitive to certain types of food, special diets will help you too. If you’re diet is not very varied naturally, then extra vitamins and such will help you. But there’s no reason to give those things to autistic children who show no signs of those particular allergies to ‘treat autism’. If you really think your child is allergic to something, you can have it tested. Same goes for heavy metal poisoning. (And I mean dependable tests, not the quack ones). If someone has ‘gut problems’ and you take measures to help that, then that is exactly what will happen: their gut problems will go away. If their ‘functioning’ improves afterwards, consider that it might just be a whole lot easier to do pretty much everything if you don’t have some other problem that you were previously constantly struggling with. Doesn’t mean that treatment ‘reduces autism’.