Parents of children on the autism spectrum are wading through a considerable amount of information on the Internet purporting effective treatment and “cures” for autism. A majority of the treatments have been discredited:
“Almost by accident, Laidler says he and Ann, discovered the diet they’d put their son on didn’t work. ‘He was gluten-free and we thought it was a miraculous cure for our son because he’d made pretty dramatic strides from the age of 3 to 4. We were starting to see real progress. But on a trip to Disneyland, he grabbed a waffle off the table and ate it before we could stop him. Doctors had told us that one drop [of gluten] would cause a dramatic relapse—we’d been told anecdotal stories that a speck of wheat bread would cause an autistic child to have weeks of bad behavior. And nothing happened.’
“The Laidlers had also tried chelating their son, and as physicians they had helped other families who wanted to try it. ‘Nobody ever told me it did any good. So to regain my sense of mental balance I started asking a lot of pointed questions: Have you tried chelation? What was the result? Ninety percent of people I asked said they saw no improvement.’”
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