Posts

Showing posts from May, 2009

Serenity Now

Research Suggests Children Can Recover from Autism with Behavioral Therapy

Provided by: Associated PressWritten by: Lindsey Tanner, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS May. 8, 2009 CHICAGO - Leo Lytel was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. But by age nine he had overcome the disorder. His progress is part of a growing body of research that suggests at least 10 per cent of children with autism can "recover" from it - most of them after undergoing years of intensive behavioral therapy. Skeptics question the phenomenon, but University of Connecticut psychology professor Deborah Fein is among those convinced it's real. She presented research this week at an autism conference in Chicago that included 20 children who, according to rigorous analysis, got a correct diagnosis but years later were no longer considered autistic. Among them was Leo, a boy in Washington, D.C., who once made no eye contact, who echoed words said to him and often spun around in circles - all classic autism symptoms. Now he is an articulate, social third-grader. His mother, Jayne Lytel, says