gluten-free And Autism

[glutenjunkie]

Anyone else here have a child with Autism that you've tried the gluten free diet with? It's worked amazingly well for my daughter (now 5, gluten free at age 2).

[Kimmik95]

I don't, but I've heard it can do great things. I have a friend who tried it, but she didn't see any change. I'm glad it worked for your daughter.

Anyone else here have a child with Autism that you've tried the gluten free diet with? It's worked amazingly well for my daughter (now 5, gluten free at age 2).

[Kelleybean]

Hi -

We started the gluten-free diet about 6 weeks ago for my son (he will be 3 in March). I have not noticed any change yet - it might be too soon though.

I'm so glad that your daughter is doing well!

[glutenjunkie]

Hi -

We started the gluten-free diet about 6 weeks ago for my son (he will be 3 in March). I have not noticed any change yet - it might be too soon though.

I'm so glad that your daughter is doing well!

It took awhile with my daughter as well, the first month was her detoxing from it. If anything, she felt worse in that time.

Good luck!

[srall]

My daughter does not have autism, but we've noticed a lot of positive behavior changes with the diet.

[celiac-mommy]

My son wasn't officially diagnosed with autism, but he was definitely on the spectrum. His changes were instant. Within a week. He was 2.5 when he was diagnosed with celiac. He's 5.5 now and perfectly healthy (but super skinny) and where he should be at school.

[Anya]

I think that gluten-free alone is not sufficient for some kids with autism. I know of success stories with gluten-free and dairy/casein-free diet.

[gary'sgirl]

My kids have not been diagnosed with autism, but after going gluten free and having some improvement, we noticed the most improvement after starting the SCD diet. I thought I would mention it because some of the people it has helped the most are children with autism.

If you are interested or have not yet seen much improvement with taking just gluten out of your childs diet check out pecanbread.com. It's a site designed specifically for helping children with autism through diet. Some of the stories are amazing and very encouraging. You can find a lot of support there from other families living with autism.

[Kelleybean]

We are only gluten free right now and have not noticed any dramatic changes (we were low gluten before this so I wonder if that made it harder to tell too). We're going to try removing casein next, which is actually for us going to be harder than gluten. There are so many great gluten-free products out there, but good casein substitutes for us have been harder.

The biggest help for us with my son has been intensive ABA therapy (applied behavioral analysis). He has made amazing progress with it.