‘Reversed’ autism study slammed by National Autistic Society as ‘deeply insulting’

UK newspapers have this week shared news of an American study which has claimed to have ‘reversed’ autistic traits in a set of twins – research which has been branded “shoddy”, “questionable” and “deeply insulting” by the National Autistic Society.

Published in the Journal of Personalised Medicine last month, the case report was led by University of Maryland professor and epidemiologist Christopher D’Adamo with support from Documenting Hope, a research initiative from an organisation called Epidemic Answers, who look to help children “heal from health issues like autism, ADHD, allergies, asthma, autoimmune [conditions], eczema, mood disorders and more”.

This is despite the NHS stating “being autistic does not mean you have an illness or disease”, but rather a person’s brain “works in a different way from other people”.

“If you’re autistic, you’re autistic your whole life. Autism is not a medical condition with treatments or a ‘cure’,” it adds.

Both twins, referred to only as ‘P’ and ‘L’ in the study, were diagnosed as autistic in September 2021, with a test known as the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) giving them scores of 43 and 76 respectively.

The checklist works by having parents express a level of agreement with 77 statements, covering “speech/language/communication”, “sociability”, “sensory/cognitive awareness” and “health/physical behaviour”.

“Basically, the lower the score, the fewer the problems,” the Autism Research Institute explains.

The twins underwent a range of tests which pointed to gastrointestinal issues, low intake of certain vitamins, and even signs of “mould exposure”, “bacterial overgrowth” and “fungal issues”.

The study references a concept known as “total allostatic load”, which relates to the “stress” experienced by the human body which is linked to health problems.

The girls were subjected to a “rigorous diet and nutrition intervention”, “a number of dietary supplements” and Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) – a controversial practice which encourages allistic (non-autistic) behaviour and discourages autistic traits, and which some have said promotes the harmful idea of ‘masking’ a person’s autism.

In fact, one study from 2018 shared evidence of “increased PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] symptoms” in autistic people who had experienced ABA.

After all of these interventions, ‘P’ and ‘L’s scores on the ATEC fell to 34 and 4 respectively, with a paediatrician claiming the former had undergone a “kind of miracle” as both her and ‘L’ had “improved” when it came to their eye contact, language and attention.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Autism Research Institute itself stresses that the ATEC is “not a diagnostic checklist”.

In 2023, the pair also received a “clinical re-evaluation” of their autism using the second edition of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule or ADOS-2, except it was noted that both children still had “repetitive speech and behaviour”.

Not only that, but a timeline of the whole process states that the re-evaluation still found that ‘L’ meets the criteria for an autism diagnosis.

Despite this, the paper still concludes that the study “revealed a reversal of the … autism spectrum disorder diagnoses among dizygotic toddler twin girls that was achieved primarily through environmental and lifestyle modifications over a two-year period”.

Bit weird.

Twitter/X users have expressed their doubts and frustration online, including the National Autistic Society, which wrote that “there are absolutely no conclusions at all that can be drawn from this”:

In the discussion section of the paper, the academics also detail the limitations of the study which include a note that the approach used on just two toddlers "may not yet be widely generalisable" and that there is a "lack of clear evidence of the isolated effects" of each of the treatments used.

Dr D’Adamo has been approached by indy100 for comment.

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