PLT Test Blog

One doctor/autism parent recently mentioned to me that readers need to be made aware that drug interventions for autism can take time to show effect and that since parents see their child every day, they may not notice such gradual changes and potentially throw away a drug that actually is effective in their case.  This is indeed true. On the other hand, as noted in their critique of Vitamin B6 use in autism , the Lurie Center for Autism at Massachusetts General for Children advised: “It is difficult to track improvement or decline in children with autism because many have cycles of better, then worse, behavior, and many are also involved in more than one therapy that may change while the child is on supplements … In our experience, although parents may see a change (positive or negative) in the short term, few continue to give megadose vitamin B6 to their children because of the difficulty in teasing out whether or not it really makes a difference and because of the activation and...

Not all stools were created equal There was a comment recently left on this blog posing the question of what makes a good donor for FMT ( Fecal Microbiota Transplantation), or a “poop transplant” in plain English. FMT is actually an approved therapy for Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). Research has shown   FMT to be more effective than the antibiotic vancomycin . To quote from the research, “ The infusion of donor feces was significantly more effective for the treatment of recurrent C. difficile infection than the use of vancomycin” . FMT might not be for discussion at the dinner table, but it is highly effective in some instances. FMT is actually far more widely used than you might imagine.   In one of today’s papers from China they had treated 1,387 people using 20 donors, for a wide variety of conditions. In the US, autism researchers at Arizona State University showed a benefit that was maintained after a period of two years. Autism symptoms reduced nearly 50 p...

One to one autism therapy is pricey – is it worth it? Only a handful of countries widely apply behavioral interventions to treat toddlers diagnosed with autism.   Behavioral interventions include Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), Verbal Behavior (VB), Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) and the Denver model. Even after several decades, the published evidence that these interventions actually work is quite weak.   This explains why most countries do not readily provide public funds for ABA. In the US, efforts are being made to diagnose autism at younger and younger ages, because the child can then benefit from these “proven” interventions, that other countries do not believe work.   Who is right?    You can read Manuel Casanova’s perspective at the end of this post.  He is not such a fan of expensive US developed therapies and concludes:- " spending time with your children and group socialization, in my experience, have provided the most favorable outcome...