Therapeutic and Supportive Treatments and Interventions for People Diagnosed with Autism

1. Psychosocial interventions 2. Special educational programmes 3. applied behavioural analysis (ABA) 4. pharmacotherapy 5. Educational interventions 6. Early intervention 7. Mind–body therapies 8. Technology 9. Discrete trial teaching methods (DTT) 10. DTT in natural environments 11. Early Intensive Behavioural Intervention (EIBI) 12. Applied Behavioural Intervention (ABI) 13. Pivotal response therapy 14. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) 15. SCERTS model 16. Relationship development intervention 17. Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication-handicapped Children (TEACCH) 18. Drugs, supplements or diets 19. TMS—Transcranial magnetic stimulation. This chapter describes the therapies that are currently being adopted with some success to improve the quality of life for families and help give greater independence and autonomy to people diagnosed with autism. Drug therapies will not be dealt with. These depend, country by country, on criteria and authorisations by local authorities. Above all, drug therapies are aimed not at autism per se, but at alleviating certain specific, often related characteristics, such as anxiety and hyperactivity. Discussing this is beyond the scope of this paper, and is often a topic to be left to the general sensitivity and consideration of the physician. It is the general opinion of this author that 'pharmacological intervention is of significant value, especially in cases where the symptomatic component represents a source of pain and discomfort for the person. This is the case in all cases in which soothing the symptom at the same time does not make the pathological source (and thus the source of the symptom) inaccessible, and keeps the patient, his or her self and person accessible, and especially when it does not claim, by eliminating the symptoms, to have put an end to the pathological situation, which could find other, far more dramatic avenues of expression". Neither will I discuss clearly discredited or unsupported therapeutic approaches. That there is damage to the central nervous system in autistic persons is beyond dispute, and therefore a clear negative effect of potentially inflammatory foods in general is logical and to be avoided. As well as vitamin supplementation, mineral salts, probiotics, are part of the normal treatment of any person who is found, on clinical analysis, to be deficient and in need of them. Here I will discuss—and try to document with studies for and against and general verification studies—the most accredited therapies in general use, which as we shall see are essentially psychological and psychotherapeutic in nature. It is important to state at the outset that there is no 'one therapy', nor is there a 'one-size-fits-all' therapy. In itself, the psychological and psychotherapeutic approach depends very much on the schools in each individual country and the psychotherapeutic approach. In addition to this difference there is an ontological one: therapy is personal and individualised, this is true and ontologically unavoidable for neuronormal people, all the more so for neurodiverse people. What is true for psychological support is even more true for integrated and multimodal therapies. In this overall context, it is the writer's opinion that—precisely because of the peculiar characteristics of the autistic spectrum—psychological, psychomotor, mind–body relationship and even bioenergetic support approaches are all avenues to be pursued in search of the most suitable, functional and useful form of support for the person.