Professor Samuel Odom said it was often hard for parents of children with autism to access information on treatments.
An international expert on the treatment of autism has warned Irish parents against interventions which are marketed as cutting edge technologies but have no basis in fact.
Professor Samuel Odom, who is the keynote speaker at a major conference in Dublin today on special needs education, said it was often hard for parents of children with autism to access information on treatments or even to understand the information.
I would advise them to ask: Where the evidence is that the treatment works? Can you show me where this has been tried in a very systematic way with students of autism that they actually get better?
A number of alternative treatments in the US have emerged in recent years in educational settings, including dietary interventions, aquatic therapy, medical marijuana and stem cell therapy.
These are sometimes promoted in opposition to applied behavioural analysis (ABA), which has been shown to be very effective, said Prof Odom.
There has been a long-running battle by some parents of children with autism to have schools provide ABA as the sole method of treatment rather than a mix of approaches, often referred to as an eclectic model.
As a rule, Prof Odom said: No single approach works with every child. The ABA approaches, which use a range of strategies are quite a good choice. But he stressed there were different ABA models, including pivotal response treatment which showed very good effects in trials and the early start Denver model which focused not only the childs learning, but also developing new strategies for teachers.
Prof Odom, who spoke to The Irish Times, also warned of a growing public health challenge from the number of children with autism graduating from post-primary education. It is estimated that one in 68 children have autism, and the incidence of diagnosis is increasing.
In the US, parents of children with autism face a real challenge when they graduate from high school and go into the community. We do know the outcomes for those individuals are often very poor. They often dont find jobs, they often continue to live with their parents and they dont often develop a social network of friends.
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Parents of children with autism warned against unscientific treatments