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What Would A “Cure” Look Like?

This is an interesting question and an interesting topic. Because there is “no cure,” there cannot be any clients who have achieved that status. If we had not clients who have been “cured,” how can we know what a “cured” client would present?

What Examples Can We Use?

Well, there are many DAN! doctors and parents who have identified that their client, their child has recovered. In our office we have had some High Functioning Autistic and Asperger’s children who have re-engaged their developmental process and who have caught up with their peers developmentally. We have had hundreds of children with ADD/ADHD, Dyslexia, APD, LD, and other developmental problems who have re-engaged their developmental process and who have caught up with their peers. So, there are examples we can use to talk about what a “cure” might look like.

Developmental Stages

For us “Recovered” refers to those who have re-engaged their developmental processes and who have caught up with their peers (developmentally). We use an interactive Developmental Checklist to track developmental progress. So, we gather data from parents to determine if the child has gotten back on track and has developed to be age appropriate (this checklist only goes up through age 6). Others may have a different meaning for “Recovered,” so I will only talk about what we see with our clients.

What Does Recovered Look Like?

Younger children with mild developmental problems (such as hyperactivity) may only take a few months to re-engage their developmental process and get back on track. It make take a few more months to developmentally catch up with their peers. And, it will probably take a few more months more to have built all their missed socialization skills.

The older the child and the more severe the developmental problem, the longer each of these stages takes. For example, a 17 year old HFA may take a year to fully re-engage the stuck developmental process, another year to fully catch up with peers, and another year of guidance and parenting to build most of their missed socialization skills. At the end of this time, the child will be graceful, will know how to make friends, will be good at the sports of their choice, can control their impulses, and be responsible. Even with all of this, the resulting 20-year old may be a little quirky.

Exceptions

There are certainly exceptions. Children with Failure To Thrive may take a lot longer to go through these phases, even though they are young. And some 10 and 11 year old HFAs have completed all the phases in less than a year.

Each case is different and our experiences, which I have described here, is in generalizations. Our approach is to work with the child where the child is in the process.

Our greatest pleasures come when our testing has shown that our training program is working with a particular child and we know that in the next few sessions, the child will show up with dramatic evidence that they are progressing developmentally.

Rodger Bailey, MS