http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2924"Many parents of children with autism have expressed to me their dismay that the anti-vaccine lobby is sucking all the oxygen out of the room for autism awareness. They feel that just being a parent of a child with autism makes others assume that they are anti-vaccine. They also worry that resources and attention are being diverted from promising legitimate research because of all the attention being paid to the failed vaccine hypothesis.
So it is good to occasionally focus on mainstream autism research to show that progress is being made, despite the unfortunate anti-vaccine sideshow.
A recent study published in the latest issue of Pediatrics shows that early intervention in toddlers with autism can have significant benefits. The study is a randomized controlled trial of the Early Start Denver Model compared to conventional treatment in 18-30 month old children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The study is a reasonable size for this kind of intervention – 48 children were randomized – and this is sufficiently powered to get statistical significance. But it should be noted this is still a smallish study and replication to confirm the results is welcome.
Another potential weakness is that the control group was “referral to community providers for intervention commonly available in the community.” Therefore the control group was not standardized and it’s possible this group was sub-optimally treated. Further, while the groups were randomized they were not blinded.
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