Can chiropractic benefit a child with autism?

A recent case study suggests that chiropractic adjustments can help reverse and prevent autism and issues related to the autism spectrum. The patient was an adopted three-year-old girl who was born at 28 weeks weighing two pounds, five ounces by a woman who had a history of drug abuse. After two years of abnormal behavior and receiving multiple "autism" diagnoses from medical doctors, her parents decided to take her in for a thorough developmental evaluation. Five critical items were failed: social/emotional, communication, cognitive, adaptive/self-help and sensory.

The child's parents brought her to a local chiropractor, with symptoms including common neurological autism manifestations, unrelenting headaches, acid reflux, vomiting, sleeplessness and seizures. Chiropractic care eliminated her headaches, acid reflux, vomiting and sleeplessness within one month of treatments. Significant improvements in autism-related issues were also noted, including calm behavior, increased eye contact, happier demeanor, improved attitude, increased focus and attention, and an initiation to sound out words. She continues to make progress as evidenced by a significantly increased vocabulary, continued improvement in attention and focus, and complete lack of epileptic episodes.

According to her mother, the patient has been "off all of her medications, she's making improvements with her occupational therapists, speech therapists, even her pre-school teachers are noticing a big difference. I'm getting my little girl back.” Her mother cannot stress enough the impact that chiropractic care has had on her daughter.

"Finding the cause of autism, and not simply masking the symptoms, is the most effective way of managing the disease," the study author says. One such risk is thought to be spinal misalignments and/or abnormal motion of the spine, called "vertebral subluxations," which result in structural and neurological interference to the spine and nervous system. The theory is that, once those spinal distortions are corrected, the body is better able to balance its physiology. Not surprisingly, other researchers have found similar results in regard to diseases in the autism spectrum being managed by chiropractic adjustments, and this case is one of several emerging studies describing this phenomena. The authors call for further study in a controlled environment.