Will Autism Treatments Cure My Child?
While no doctor can tell you, after one or two visits, whether or to what degree your child will improve, there are some clues that can provide some insight. The bottom line, according to Dr. James Coplan (a developmental pediatrician and author), is that outcomes usually relate to the severity of symptoms and the intelligence of the child. Brighter children with milder symptoms fare best - but bright children with severe symptoms can often improve dramatically.
In theory, therefore, an intelligence test is an important tool for predicting how your child with autism will do in the long run. But here's the kicker: most intelligence tests do a poor job of measuring the IQ of children with autism. The reasons are fairly simple: most IQ tests rely on a child's verbal skills and social communication. People with autism have compromised verbal skills and social communication. In a sense, it's like measuring the quality of a piano based on a test intended for a clarinet.
Comments
I was severely autistic at age 2-1/2 to 3, recovered significantly by age 5 though not completely, the only intervention i had was psychoanalysis. preschool IQ tests are certainly not the same as those given toolder children, you can’t really tell who is brighter or better able to recover and i don’t believe there is any intervention that makes a difference, so i don’t really buy what you are saying.
I don’t really agree that an IQ test can predict the future for a child with autism. My son has never scored high on it since age 5 to age 9 and qualifies for an MR diagnosis due to his score however, his progress has been quite well considering his diagnosis at age three was severe autism.
I would never rely on one sort of test to measure the future outcome of a child with autism, more so I would not give much hype to the IQ testing. Many parents have a hard time alone handling the word autism, then add that IQ test and a low score and MR to it, the result is emotional overload for that parent.
All children have the potential to progress regardless of if they’re ‘bright’ or the severity of autism and behaviors. Each child will progress at different rates as well and no one can really say which intervention would promote a child with autism to become “functional” without supports. The IQ of a child certainly does not depict this.
actually, my point- in part - was to say that the IQ tests our kids receive are often flat out wrong.
my son tested in the MR range on the IQ test, after receiving a high/normal score years before. when I called the psychologist, her response was to say that he does NOT have MR - that the results were meaningless! I asked her to take the scores off his report, and she did… but no one even suggested trying a different test.
When he received that score, BTW, he was reading on grade level, playing advanced clarinet, and generally making it clear that he was quite capable intellectually (even if he’s no savant).
bottom line, Coplan’s figures seem to have some validity (there’s been a lot of testing to look at prognosis) - BUT it seems a lot harder than one would imagine to actually measure the intelligence of a person on the autism spectrum.
maybe the takeaway message is… take those IQ scores with a grain of salt! most are inappropriate measures for our kids, and thus mean very little in the long run.
if i were starting over with a little one, though, I think I really would ask for the TONI and other tests, so that my son could be appropriately educated. as it was, the expectations at school were very low indeed… not sure whether the tests led to that or whether it was just a not-so-great system…
Lisa (autism guide)