New Inexpensive Therapy for ASD Yields Significant Increases in IQ

Lisa Franchi July 22, 2014

Breakthrough research, which spanned for 49 years, highlights a unique therapy that showed significant increases in IQ among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). More remarkably, the method costs about a sixth of that of the most commonly used treatments.

Reported on at the American Psychoanalytic Association in Chicago, the new therapy is called Reflective Network Therapy, (RNT) which focuses on one child at a time. It utilises small social networks composed of parents, teachers, an in-classroom therapist and peers. It provides intensive interpersonal exercises within the child’s own preschool class on hundreds of occasions during the course of a school year." Videos of treatments were used to illustrate results during the Chicago meeting.

"The method costs about one sixth that of the most commonly used treatment," said lead investigator Gilbert Kliman, M.D. of The Children’s Psychological Health Centre in Santa Rosa and San Francisco. According to him, it could “save public special education systems, parents and insurers millions of dollars for every ten children receiving the treatment”.

Significant IQ Increases among Subjects

The test included 1700 of disturbed pre-schoolers, 680 of whom have ASD. Videotapes of the children showed observable clinical progress among those subjected into the treatment. 79 of the children (31 of whom have ASD) also took IQ tests at the beginning of the treatment and a year after. All but one of the 79 twice-tested children showed IQ gains, which the average gains of 24 points. Surprisingly, some of the highest increases in IQ were from the 31 autism spectrum patients.

The findings were remarkable that Dr Kliman was awarded a prize for leadership in treatment of autistic and other pre-schoolers in May by the Parisian Psychoanalytic Society and the American College of Psychoanalysts.

Breakthrough Research

The number of autism and related developmental disorders worldwide is significantly increasing. The use of an inexpensive yet highly effective method is really a big help not just for the government, but also for the children and their parents, families, schools and community.