Social Therapy for Autistic Children Research Paper

My persuasive piece is about the new study that was published by JAMA Pediatrics about how early intervention therapy for children that are high risk to having autism can reduce the diagnosis of autism in these children.  

I am going to preface this by saying that I have not been diagnosed with autism by a professional. I have researched the topic of autism as a whole and I use ‘self-diagnose’ loosely to identify myself, also my previous therapist has said that I more than likely have autism. This is about my opinion on the topic, and I have investigated creators on social media mainly afab (assigned female at birth) which is important to state that have been diagnosed with autism professionally to help me write this piece, I will site them below at the end along with their social media attachments.  

This study was published by JAMA Pediatrics, the research team consisted of WA's Child and Adolescent Health Service, La Trobe University, University, the University of Western Australia, and the University of Manchester. The article became more well known when new sources such as abc.net, BBC, and the guardian came out with reports about it. The original paper states that “Early intervention with infants at risk of autism through therapy led by their parents improves the child's social development to such an extent they are two-thirds less likely to meet the clinical criteria for an autism diagnosis.”  “The researchers wanted to test if they could provide therapy in those early years to better support the child's development and reduce the likelihood or intensity of disabilities.” “Professor Whitehouse said most therapies or interventions for autism tried to replace or shape the developmental differences in children with more "typical" behaviors.... They videotaped the parents and children playing and interacting and then gave them feedback on the unique way their child was communicating, to help the parents interact with their children. 

They wanted to boost the back-and-forth communications between the parent and the child as the building blocks for brain development.” “What we found at three years of age is the babies who had received our therapy had significantly reduced autism behaviors compared to a control group. And the therapy was so effective that actually the children who received the therapy were less likely to meet the clinical criteria for an autism diagnosis. 

"The children who received our therapy, they were two-thirds less likely to meet criteria for autism. That's a huge reduction.” 

In summary the study says that the doctors help the parents communicate with their children, and reduce children that meet the criteria by 2/3, which is great at the forefront for any breezing over the subject.  

Many autistic people and I have a speculation towards this study, with a great amount saying that this increases the amount of masking a child will do and start it earlier on in life. Masking is learning neurotypical behaviors and mimicking them in social situations, generally to hide unaccepted behaviors in society e.g., visible stimming, it helps autistics fit in with allistics and neurotypicals. The problem with masking for an autistic person is that they lose a sense of identity, because they may mask their interests and behaviors, feeling included in group spaces with allistics but in mind or body leading to feeling a sense of imposter syndrome. It can create autistic burnout because it takes such a huge amount of energy to mask. Depression, anxiety, exhaustion, increased suicidal thoughts, and probably the biggest problem delayed diagnosis of autism. As someone who is probably on their way to get a late diagnosis of autism, I really struggled as a child and early teenage years. In school we thought this is how we work, and I never felt very connected to it, or I’d be missing pieces recently I realised they were actual talking about neurotypicals and I’m not surprised as they’re most of the population. This created struggles in my life and caused bullying to occur.  The main problem with this study is that it may reduce selective mutism and help better communicate but at the same time it will lead to higher rates of masking and the children that grow through this experience thinking it is normal. The reason I was brought up in the beginning that most of the people I listened to and watched were afab was because they were, and that masking is bigger of a trait for afab people with autism or were at least socialized as a girl. This will just increase the overall sense of masking, but people won’t know it’s masking because the children are starting the therapy at such a young age. The therapy from the results doesn’t help any of the other problems autistics have living in an allistics society such as sensory overload, auditory processing issues, having restricted and limited interests, and struggles with changes in routine. Meaning yes, they are less likely to get a diagnosis, but they still have autism.  

Autism is not something that can be cured, it is a neurological difference, it can’t be ‘fixed’. This is what may people have problems with the paper. It seems like their trying to ‘fix’ autism, but they are just lessening it to society, and this can cause the children to have problems later in life because they aren’t the same as their neurotypical peers. Autistic people see tis a lot in life with people wanting to reduce autism or change people who have it, while it would be better for the population as a whole to learn more about it and find ways to help people with autism and not treat them like a problem.