Early Autism Treatment Benefits Kids' Brains
Early Autism Treatment Benefits Kids' Brains
Oct. 29, 2012 -- Early, intensive autism treatment improves children's brain development, a new study shows.
The treatment, dubbed Early Start Denver Model or ESDM, offers a child 20 hours a week of one-on-one treatment with a trained therapist. It also calls for many more hours of the treatment, in the form of structured play, with a parent trained in the technique.
"We jump-started and improved the responses of children's brains to social information," says Dawson, professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina and chief science officer at Autism Speaks.
Normal child development depends on interactions with parents and other people. Without such interactions, language and social skills do not develop.
As measured by an electroencephalogram (EEG), small children's brains show a specific pattern of activity when they look at a picture of a human face. This doesn't happen when they look at pictures of inanimate objects.
Just the reverse happens in children with autism. Their brains light up when they look at pictures of objects, but not when they look at faces. This changed dramatically in the children treated with ESDM.
"The [brains of] children who received the ESDM looked virtually identical to typical 4-year-olds," Dawson says. "The children that received the interventions normal in their communities continued to show the reversed pattern."
The treated children weren't cured. They still had autism, Dawson says. But they are continuing to improve.
"These interventions not only alter the trajectory of behavioral development in a child with autism, but also brain development," Dawson says.
Brain development in children given a behavioral autism treatment likely means these children are learning to "work around" their autism, suggests Arthur L. Beaudet, MD, professor of molecular and human genetics, pediatrics, and molecular and cellular biology at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.
"To the extent early intervention helps brain development, it is more likely to help by letting the brain compensate and get around the problems rather than reverse them," Beaudet says. "We do know if you damage the brain of a young child, like in an accident, the infant brain has a tremendous ability to recover and get around the problem."
Early Autism Treatment Benefits Kids' Brains
Oct. 29, 2012 -- Early, intensive autism treatment improves children's brain development, a new study shows.
The treatment, dubbed Early Start Denver Model or ESDM, offers a child 20 hours a week of one-on-one treatment with a trained therapist. It also calls for many more hours of the treatment, in the form of structured play, with a parent trained in the technique.
"We jump-started and improved the responses of children's brains to social information," says Dawson, professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina and chief science officer at Autism Speaks.
Normal child development depends on interactions with parents and other people. Without such interactions, language and social skills do not develop.
As measured by an electroencephalogram (EEG), small children's brains show a specific pattern of activity when they look at a picture of a human face. This doesn't happen when they look at pictures of inanimate objects.
Just the reverse happens in children with autism. Their brains light up when they look at pictures of objects, but not when they look at faces. This changed dramatically in the children treated with ESDM.
"The [brains of] children who received the ESDM looked virtually identical to typical 4-year-olds," Dawson says. "The children that received the interventions normal in their communities continued to show the reversed pattern."
Changing Brain Development
The treated children weren't cured. They still had autism, Dawson says. But they are continuing to improve.
"These interventions not only alter the trajectory of behavioral development in a child with autism, but also brain development," Dawson says.
Brain development in children given a behavioral autism treatment likely means these children are learning to "work around" their autism, suggests Arthur L. Beaudet, MD, professor of molecular and human genetics, pediatrics, and molecular and cellular biology at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston.
"To the extent early intervention helps brain development, it is more likely to help by letting the brain compensate and get around the problems rather than reverse them," Beaudet says. "We do know if you damage the brain of a young child, like in an accident, the infant brain has a tremendous ability to recover and get around the problem."
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