Risks and benefits in the treatment of autistic children.

Abstract

Parents of handicapped children--especially the severely handicapped, like those called autistic--are often faced with the issue of risktaking. When the usual helping professions turn parents away with put him away and forget was born or he can no longer benefit from our program or your child needs help but it's too expensive. We have many others to care for, you know, then parents are very much on their own. As Lloyd Nolan says in the film A Minority of One, it is ironic that parents of autistic children have in the past been accused of rejecting their child, when in reality the parents are often the only ones who don t reject him. Faced with the alternative of severe injury, or sometimes even death of their Child, parents (and professionals) may turn to methods that are unorthodox, unexplored, sometimes unapproved, or even condemned by existing traditional therapists. Those brave souls who first tried lobotomy or megavitamins, or the zapper or behavior modification had to agonize about the risks in relation to the possible benefits. Bernard Rimland has often, during conferences around the country, mentioned the subject of risk-taking and agreed to do a brief paper on the subject for this column. We have asked several persons to react to his comments. Seven who submitted statements are mothers, two of whom became professionals in the field of autism. Out of their own desperation in trying to find for their sons an alternative to the back ward of an institution, each of these two mothers started her own school; both have become nationally recognized models for programs for autistic persons. Each is faced dally with the profoundly handicapped autistic child, adolescent, and