Believe it or not, some children do recover from autism to live normal lives. While the process is not simple or easy, parents who have reversed their childrens’ autism are shouting their successes from the rooftops. Their testimonials are online and in abundance.

My involvement with autism began some years ago when I attended one of the early seminars on autism in Sydney, Australia. A paediatric autism specialist presented the case of a nine-year-old boy whose parents had been told their son was retarded, there was no hope of improvement, and they should place him in care. This boy was treated using diet, nutrition and selected medications over several years. A successive IQ test revealed that he had an extremely high IQ. So, it is not necessarily true when parents are told: “Nothing can be done”.

Sadly, a minority of parents are given information about the possibility of improvement, or hope of their child becoming ‘neurotypical’, able to attend mainstream school and living a normal life.

Autism is often accompanied by repeated ear nose or throat infections, sleeping problems, skin conditions, allergies, seizures, tics, and a range of gut symptoms like constipation and/or diarrhoea. A common trait of children on the autism spectrum is picky eating and cravings for certain types of food, like bread, pasta and milk. When physical symptoms are successfully treated, the mental symptoms usually improve too.

Therefore, the remediation process often begins with physical and metabolic imbalances being identified and treated. This is called ‘biomedical’ treatment. Biomedical treatment helps to normalise metabolism, gut function and therefore brain function.

There are many, many resources for autism and researching is overwhelming for parents, to say the least. Here are two key resources which can point you to quality organisations in your particular country.

The Global Autism Collaboration networks and collaborates with autism organisations around the world and provides links to each organisation, so parents can access support locally.

The Autism Research Institute is a high-quality comprehensive international resource, with origins dating back to the 1970s. It provides free online resources, through webinars, videos, newsletters and chat groups. It conducts and sponsors research aimed at improving the quality of life for autistic children and adults with autism spectrum disorders .

With the internet teeming with websites on autism, these sites are highly recommended starting points, to help parents find what they need as quickly as possible. The information is accurate and reliable, with contributions from doctors from around the world.

There are two success stories in Good News for People with Bad News. Each family had two children on the autistic spectrum – one severely autistic child and a less severely affected younger sibling.

Keep asking. Keep going. Find parents who have recovered children. They will talk to you and inspire you.