Developmental delays due to neglect - catch up possible ?

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I have read about people adopting children from orphanages where the kids were severely neglected. These children are solely fed food of a mushy consistency, were left to lie in their cribs for HOURS on end each day, changed maybe 2 or 3 times a day MAX, and not given any opportunities for socializations or communication etc, until they are adopted out to families. Some of these children are verbal, but many are not. They also supposedly (around 2 to 4 years of age) are still in diapers, only eat bland, tasteless food of a watery consistency, have minimal eye contact and plenty of self-stimulatory (probably developed to amuse themselves, while they lie in their cribs, as a 2 or 3 yr old and unable to explore their surroundings).

HOWEVER, what made my jaw drop was the anecdotal evidence that these kids, at adoption and with intervention, do eventually catch up to some extent in the areas of language & cognition, because their delays had been introduced by neglect, and not by any biological or cognitive factors. Supposedly, they have behavioral and social problems that continue to present themselves, but the language & cognition are frequently noted to "clear up".

I would like to hear your opinions on such situations. Is this likely that autism or developmental delays caused by neglect can & do resolve positively with adequate and aggressive intervention, even at a later stage than we normally give credit for ?

I ask because I thought autism was a neurological disorder, but these orphanage cases point to the fact that there may actually be an environmental component to it ? Your thoughts, please ? Thank you !

Last edited by HisMom on 13 Oct 2012, 10:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's possible that they have developmental delays different from autism, caused by the conditions they are in.

True autism cannot be cured yet, through aggressive treatment, many can live productive lives, but if the condition goes away completely with adoption and a change of enviroment, it's unlikely it was really autism.

Those kids you describe suffer from hospitalism (or anaclitic depression in its sublethal form,) not autism.

Autism is a neurological difference that can be clearly shown by a brain scan and other imaging procedures. That the environment has nothing to do with autism is obvious because there are autistic people with NT siblings, even twins, one of whom is autistic, which clearly refutes the theory of autism being caused by environment.

Current evidence seems to suggest, that autism has both a genetic and an environmental component. While these orphanage kids may display autism-like symptoms, they only have autism if they actually have autism YKWIM? I don't see any reason to doubt that these kids can catch up, maybe they will never be 100% but they should be able to learn.

That is what I was thinking, too, but the literature out there is so scant that it is difficult to draw any conclusions either way.

IMO, no child is born tableau rasa, and so these kids usually do end up catching up, even if not a 100%. My son's OT was the one who talked about this to me (one of her first cases was an 8-yr-old, non-verbal, orphanage adoption child many years ago) and she was telling me that ANYTHING is possible - ANYTHING. Wow, is all I can say.

Apples and oranges. These kids were not autistic, they only displayed autistic-like symptoms due to the neglect.

There are plenty of things that look like autism and aren't: Neglect and abuse as you described above, hearing loss etc. I would caution against comparing true autism with things that either have no or a different organic origin. Whatever the environmental triggers/contributors might be to autism, most people think there is at least some genetic/epigenetic components.

I would not even think that all the people on the spectrum actually have the same exact thing. The manifestations are too broad IMO, and there are too many suspect genes.