Abstract
Aim: To determine the ability of parents of children with autism to guess, under double blind conditions, whether their child had received secretin or placebo.
Methods: 2x2 crossover randomised blinded study, comparing the effect of synthetic human secretin 2 U/kg to placebo (saline). Sixty two children with autism (aged 43–103 months) were randomly allocated to two groups: group 1 received placebo, followed six weeks later by secretin, and group 2 received secretin followed by placebo. At the conclusion of the study, parents were asked to guess their child's group assignment.
Results: Twenty seven families guessed their child's group assignment correctly and 27 guessed incorrectly. In 48 instances, parents based their guess on perceived improvement; in six cases, parents based their guess on perceived deterioration. Six families saw no difference after either infusion, and offered no guess. One family dropped out after the first infusion, and one family was lost to follow up after the second infusion.
Conclusion: In a controlled setting, parents of young children with autism are unable to distinguish the short term behavioural effects of secretin from placebo.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (87.0 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Levy S. E., Souders M. C., Wray J., Jawad A. F., Gallagher P. R., Coplan J., Belchic J. K., Gerdes M., Mitchell R., Mulberg A. E. Children with autistic spectrum disorders. I: comparison of placebo and single dose of human synthetic secretin. Arch Dis Child. 2003 Aug;88(8):731–736. doi: 10.1136/adc.88.8.731. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Rapin I., Katzman R. Neurobiology of autism. Ann Neurol. 1998 Jan;43(1):7–14. doi: 10.1002/ana.410430106. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]