Therapy for kids with autism: the earlier the better

By Shelby D Burns, Sun, October 02, 2011

A primary characteristic of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is impairment in social communication. Children and adolescents with social-communication problems face difficulty understanding, interacting and engaging with others as they lack the filters to understand the subtleties of human communication. Children who receive more intensive therapy through occupational therapists and social skills coaches in order to combat these impairments have the best outcomes, especially when early intervention is achieved.

“It’s important for children with autism to begin treatment as soon as possible,” said Micah Mazurek, assistant professor in the School of Health Professions and the Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. “The more intense or comprehensive the therapy, the better it is in terms of helping children improve social and communication skills.”

The researchers looked at data from over 1000 children with ASD. They measured fifteen different social skills, including recognition of facial expressions, gestures, language comprehension, sharing enjoyment and appropriate social responses.

Those who went through some kind of intervention or therapy had the most improvement. This included behavioral, speech and occupational therapy. The greater advancements came for those children who received more intensive treatment at younger ages.

“With regard to social-communicative symptom severity, our study reveals that it is not IQ alone that contributes to improvement over time,” Mazurek said. “Instead, having a higher IQ may allow children to make greater gains in various types of treatments. Although IQ scores of children with ASD may be strongly influenced by their capacity for attention and ability to comply with tasks results indicate the need to design and examine alternative treatment approaches for those with intellectual impairments.”

Targeted intensive treatments may be the best chance children have to acquire social skills to develop normally.

Source: MedicalNewsToday

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