Watch as licensed psychologist and autism specialist Dr. Ronald Leaf discusses whether or not a special diet can help children with autism spectrum disorders.
Half the children with Autism Spectrum Disorders are on special diets. Gluten casing free diet has been a primary diet that parents are putting their children on. The evidence is limited best, there's been three studies that have been published that show that diets have no effect in the treatment of autism.
One diet had the controlled group versus the children with gluten casing of free diet, and actually the controlled group did better than those on the diet. So there's no empirical evidence today the diet have any affects on children with autism. Certainly we want children to have great healthy diets, but to think that that's going to result in gains, research shows it hasn't, our clinical evidence shows that it hasn't.
Children need research based treatments, diets are not research based.
Ronald Leaf, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who has over 30 years of experience in the field of autism. He is co-author of A Work in Progress, a manual on behavioral treatment of autism.
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