Questions About Choosing the Best Biomedical Therapy for Your Child
Question: The DAN involves chelation, nutritional supplements, enzymes, probiotics and other dietary changes. How can a parent assess the efficacy of any one element of this very complex treatment approach? Or is it the DAN perspective that ALL of these treatments are necessary simultaneously?Answer: No, there is no one absolute “protocol” for treatments using the DAN! Methods. Every child’s case is distinct and as such we’ve seen our greatest successes when individuality is emphasized through treatments. With this being said, so many of our interventions are so incredibly safe that there is absolutely no reason not to try them in trial doses (ie. B6 & Mg in high doses, DMG, TMG, cod liver oil etc..) . Unfortunately, with most of these vitamin/mineral interventions the only way to know if it will help the child is to simply try it (there are no easy lab tests). I also suggest parents look at ARI’s Parent Survey of Biomedical Interventions (on website) that is regularly updated—this can be a big help in leading parents to the interventions that appear most promising.
Question: I see on your website that DAN also recommends Auditory Integration Therapy (AIT), another controversial biomedical approach to autism treatment. Does DAN recommend any of the more mainstream non-biomedical interventions such as ABA, Floortime, RDI, social stories, etc.?
Answer: DAN! And ARI, in particular, have been very strong proponents of therapies like ABA. Our Director, Dr. Bernard Rimland founded the Autism Society of America in 1965 in order to spread the word about ABA. ABA is now much more widely accepted intervention, and as such we focus on the other very promising biomedical interventions.
Question: On the ARI/DAN website you list a number of research studies on various topics, some of which are directly related to autism and some of which are more peripheral. Most of us can't intelligently compare your researchers to the NIH researchers and decide which studies are best designed, best managed, most significant. How would you recommend a parent compare and contrast your research with other research that presents different findings?
Answer: As it is stated on our brochure—“Since 1967—Research that Makes a Difference.” Due to our collaboration with parents, researchers, and clinicians we have improved the lives of thousands upon thousands, and even recovery in many, many cases. NIH and other organizations can not claim this.
Sources:
The Autism Institute Website and information supplied by The Autism Institute
"Autism Fact Sheet," NINDS. Publication date April 2006. NIH Publication No. 06-1877
