People recover from autism?

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According to wikipedia's autism page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism#Prognosis...

So people can recover from autism? I thought it was a lifelong developmental disorder, kind of like downs syndrome.

Last edited by swbluto on 05 Dec 2011, 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You can develop enough coping strategies and edumacate yourself to have a decrease in symptoms.
I don't think that will ever happen to me in my lifetime because I've had 3 regressions already.

Look on Youtube for "autism recovery' and you'll find videos of proud parents parading there less autistic child and saying they've completely recovered from it. I just think they become more high functioning. I think it would be damaging to say they have completely recovered when they could still have symptoms like most HF people do.

I don't think anyone can recover from it but some can learn to change some of their autistic behavior & learn to adapt to an NT world so they may no longer appear to meet the autistic criteria

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Last edited by nat4200 on 19 Apr 2012, 4:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have the impression that a lot of people view autism solely in terms of behavior. So, when their kid is ABA'ed or otherwise happens to grow up to show less or less obvious odd behaviors, a lot of people see that as being cured, even though the kid is still neurologically autistic.

Lately, I've been realizing that the Skinner-behavioral model (that only behavior matters and all internal processes are irrelevant) is one that occurs naturally and seems naturally correct to a lot of people (whereas I find it abhorrent).

I don't wish to recover from my autism, because I have nothing to recover from. I wish to celebrate my autism, instead.

I think that people think of autism in terms of behavior that can be applied and analyzed away, because they think that potentially happy and healthy neurotypical children are scratching at the shells of their Mr. Peanut or Nutter Butter or Butterfinger autistic prisons, struggling to claw themselves out of their coffins and away from the flesh-eating scarabs, like Imhotep in "The Mummy".

It's Wikipedia for crying out loud. Give it time. Somebody will change it. And it will likely change again to add even more outrageous claims.

In the real world, ASD kids sometimes become either higher functioning or lower functioning as they go through puberty, during this time they may also quit having seizures or sometimes even start having seizures, although this tends to occur more often on the lower functioning end of the spectrum for reasons unknown. Therapies can go a very long way in helping kids to learn to function well in society, but it is not a cure.

Come to think of it. What a dumb choice of word. "Recover?"

You recover from accidents, injuries and diseases. You recover from things that HAPPEN to you. Autism doesn't happen to anybody. You're born with it. Recover is the wrong word.

Before we know it, Wikipedia will have a section called, "Autistic Supersoldiers and Advanced Nanopeptides".

It's misleading but yes, people can lose their diagnoses. People can get to the point where they don't meet the diagnostic criteria. The person will still be fundamentally different but it won't necessarily be noticeable. In some cases.

True, but that is not "recovery." One still has Autism. Recovery is the wrong way to describe it.

Btbnnyr put it well: People think that underneath there is a bright bubbly happy NT child that was there all along but got poisoned by Mr. nasty MMR vaccine.

Recovery is a swear word in my language. It means that you're cured. I don't need to be cured. Oh yeah, there's a happy, feminine bubbly NT priss inside of this sweet and masculine Mick Avory-like autistic.

As has been said, it's people going from nonverbal and/or clinically aloof to what we think of when we say Asperger's or HFA.

However, some can go back again after their improvements. It's probably best to say "fluctuates" rather than "recovers".