Children with Autism Don't Have to Follow a Strict Diet

Many people were convinced they should put their kids on a dairy-free or gluten-free diet, thinking gastrointestinal problems might be an underlying cause for autism. A new study says stomach problems are not a cause of the disorder.

Published in the journal Pediatrics, the study compared autistic children with children without the disorder and suggests there are no differences in the incidence of gastrointestinal problems. Still, autistic children had more frequently constipation problems.

Dr. Samar H. Ibrahim from the Mayo Clinic thinks the constipation is due to eating the same foods over and over and not consuming enough fiber. Generally speaking, common causes of constipation are lack of physical activity, not enough fiber in the diet, milk, medications, irritable bowel syndrome, dehydration, and problems with intestinal function.

Dairy-free or gluten-free diets could cause nutritional deficiencies instead of improving autism. Medication also interferes with the eating appetite.

Children with autism develop normally up to two or three years old and then lose some of previous abilities and develop symptoms such as: social isolation, hyper or hypo sensitive to sound, light and crowds. These are common symptoms, but every autistic person is unique.

Once the diagnosis is done, parents should provide their children with special education. There are behavioral treatment programs for autistic patients, programs that include prompting to perform specific behaviors, clear instructions to the child, rewards for performing those behaviors; they teach the kid when to perform the learned behaviors and increase gradually the complexity of reinforced behaviors.

Children with this disease require very much of their parents' attention. Also parents should pay attention so their other kids will not get affected by autistic ones.