Road to recovery

Of the hundreds of presentations at the International Meeting for Autism Research earlier this month, one got widely picked up: a preliminary study of children who 'recover' from autism.

Most people with autism are born with it, and though they may learn various coping strategies, they have it for life. But a little-known fact is that a fraction of kids with autism eventually lose those diagnoses. The controversy lies in the size of that group: estimates range wildly between 3 and 25 percent.

For the past few years, Deborah Fein of the University of Connecticut has been trying to pin down more specific numbers, and to figure out what factors (if any) lead to recovery.

In 2007, Fein’s group reported that of 73 children they diagnosed with autism at age 2, 13 — or about 18 percent — no longer met the autism criteria by age 4.

At IMFAR, Fein presented some follow-up data from an expanded study group of 20 recovered kids, 15 kids with high-functioning autism, and 23 healthy controls.

At this stage of the study, no factors distinguish the recovery group from the autism group. For example, the majority of kids in both groups have gone through behavioral interventions — intensive sessions that teach, among other things, simple speech and play skills — sometimes as much as 40 hours a week.

But what the two groups have in common may be just as interesting. Most surprisingly, they have similar rates of psychiatric problems, such as anxiety and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. That goes against the idea that the challenges of living with autism cause these additional issues, she says.

Fein is working on scanning the brains of these kids to see if there are any differences in the neural circuitry of the three groups.

But for now, she says that the important — if frustrating — message for parents is that answers won’t come quickly. "You just have to live with the uncertainty for a number of years, give your child the best treatment you can, and see what happens."