Where I work we closely monitor autistic children's nutritional needs, in the UK it is common practice to carry out educational and dietary therapy, we find that the dietary side doesn't make that much difference, but we can't complain that our charges are eating properly. We do find if we say something works the parents notice more changes, sometimes when they aren't too sure of the success of a treatment they don't notice the little changes, they focus on what isn't improving. We only do the nutritional side because it provides us with more funding and free food!
Where education is concerned (and I don't just mean academic schooling) obviously it is different for every child, depending on their personality, age and severity of autism.
(13-3 to England, oh yes! screw you wales)
I guess when a lot of people think of treatment they think a lot of talking, forcing certain exercises etc, we try to make everyone work together. Obviously sometimes it ends with upset and shouting, but it does slowly show them how to diffuse a situation and that sometimes doing something differently is okay.
A lot of the time we let a group do what they want for an hour or so, there is one condition, they do everything together, we try to do this when parents are around, because they are more vulnerable it is harder to see them upset and struggling, but when you allow them to work things out together, most improve a lot socially. We allow autistic traits to carry on as well, if you want to line everything up so it is straight with the edge of the table then go ahead, after all it isn't hurting anyone.
The big improvement is around 7-8 for us, but that is for children who are with us from the start, age four, the ones who start older take a lot longer to progress as learning when you are older is more difficult.
Everyone has responsibility as well, whether that is making sure the rats have water, picking up litter, or handing cutlery out at dinner time. As they improve and become older they are given more responsibility if we think they can cope with it, our 15/16 year olds often take care of the younger children, with things such as using scissors for making things, helping them write their name etc. Little things that help them to understand other people's feelings.
While there isn't treatment (as treatment means cure), you can improve somethings, a lot of which is altering your own view more than the child's, which is a stumbling block for a lot of parents as they see it as enabling and giving in.
I've probably repeated myself about four times
