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My Letter Printed In the Wall Street Journal







Progress in Treating Autism but No Magic Bullet So Far - WSJ
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.


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OPINION I LETTERS

Progress in Treating Autism but No
Magic Bullet So Far

Crank, expensive autism treatments masquerading as science
promising quick cures, lurk at the doors of progress, waiting

Jan. 29, 2016 11 :05 a.m. ET

Regarding Dr. Richard McNally's fine review of John Donvan and Caren Zucker's
extraordinary book "In a Different Key" (Books, Jan.
23): The first time I evaluated an
autistic child, in the 1970s, I met two warm, loving, guilt-ridden parents telling me
through their tears about their unresponsive, odd five-year-old child who didn't talk and
was obsessed with playing with door knobs and hinges. When this child entered my
office, he walked past me as if I wasn't there, and went straight to curtains and began
sucking on the cloth.

Scientists discovered the importance of genetics in autism and devised behavioral
methods to help some autistic children reach closer to their potential and live lives of
meaning. Because we know so little about the complex etiology of autism, crank,
expensive treatments masquerading as science promising quick cures lurk at the doors of
progress, waiting to lure parents down the road of dangerous psychiatric misadventures.

Steven J. Ceresnie, Ph.D.

Plymouth, Mich.

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