Heres how you might be able to turn autism around in a baby: Carefully watch her cues, and push just a little harder with that game of peek-a-boo or This little piggy. But dont push too hard kids with autism are super-sensitive.
Thats what Sally Rogers of the University of California, Davis has found in an intense experiment with the parents of infants who showed clear signs of autism. Its one of the most hopeful signs yet that if you diagnose autism very early, you can help children rewire their brains and reverse the symptoms.
It was a small study, and its very hard to find infants who are likely to have autism, which is usually diagnosed in the toddler years. But the findings, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, offer some hope to parents worried about their babies.
With only seven infants in the treatment group, no conclusions can be drawn, they wrote.
However, the effects were striking. Six out of the seven children in the study had normal learning and language skills by the time they were 2 to 3.
Isabel was one of them.
She is 3 years old now and she is a 100 percent typical, normally developing child, her mother, Megan, told NBC News. The family doesnt want their last name used for privacy reasons.
We dont have to do the therapy any more. It literally rewired her brain.
Autism is a very common diagnosis for children in the U.S. The latest survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a startling 30 percent jump among 8-year-olds diagnosed with the disorder in a two-year period, to one in every 68 children.
The MIND Institute has prepared an infographic to accompany its study on autism intervention at 6 months.
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Brain Game: Treat Autism Early and Reverse Symptoms?