Child with autism diet!

[RACHY112]

I have just recently found out my dd could be on the autism spectrum. She didn’t really show to many signs of asd when she was a baby,she hit her milestones in the time frame she was suppose to. When she hit about two I started noticing that her social skills and speech where abit behind but never really looked to much into it. As she got older she grew out of much of the things that we where concerned about like hitting and biting other kids. But as she got older we noticed that she would run back and forth a lot talking to herself,so when she went to playschool that’s when she found it hard to settle and sit down. That is when her teachers had concerns because she would lash out if she couldn’t run for ten minutes so they decided to let her do it and everything settled down. She is now in the middle of being assessed and they do feel like she dose have a speech delay and social skills delay. I have been researching a lot and I came across a change in diet, so no dairy or gluten and parents have found this really beneficial to the kids progressing so I’m just wondering has anyone tried this and have they seen improvements in their kids?

I have not tried that diet but I do find a good diet is important. My son was referred to a dietitian where I got some advice about his diet and what vitamins to give him. I think making sure they have the best diet possible is important.

Please don't mess with your childs diet unless you've seen an actual dietitian who can go through what your child eats and tell you what's actually missing and needs supplementing, random people on the internet can not and should not be giving advice on this.

There is a lot of false information on the internet around ASD and Autism cures / treatments and it's lead to children dying, or being forced to drink bleach to get bad bacteria from their gut and other nosense.
If you really want to feel like you are doing something children's Fish oil and multivitamin tablets are the safest bet.

I agree that it wouldn't be wise to mess around with her diet without medical advice. It wouldn't hurt to feed her proper food and avoid overly processed food with colourings, flavourings and too much sugar and salt but that's true of all children. I found with my DC with ASD that just getting him to eat at all was challenge enough as he had issues with texture and mouth-feel.

Cutting out gluten and dairy helped my DS, he had gut problems from birth and I saw a marked change in him after eliminating these. Dietary interventions are controversial and people IME tend to have very strong opinions about them. I did lots of research and made my own mind up after speaking to my GP, a dietician, a nutritionist and reading the ESPA Sunderland protocol. I cook everything from scratch, organic, unrefined sugar in small quantities, nothing processed, give a magnesium supplement etc. DS sleeps better and has made exponential progress since altering his diet. I know others whose children have benefited from dietary changes and also people who say it’s made no difference whatsoever but I personally think it’s no bad thing to look into research into the gut microbiome and gut and behaviour as a starting point
Vff

Your DD sounds just like mine. My DD is nearly 3 and is in the middle of being diagnosed, though the peadiatrican, health visitor, nursery nurse and speech and language therapist have all agreed she has autism. Iv not heard about changing their diet, my DD is very fussy and doesn't eat much as it is so i wouldn't try it.

I tried a GFCF diet for DS2 when he was 4yo for a year under the supervision of his paediatrician and an NHS dietician. I thought it was worth trying. It had no effect on him though, so I dropped it after the year and saw no adverse effect from dropping it. He did seem to benefit from eyeQ fish oils though, which I tried after the GFCF trial.

It's worth trying, but do it 'properly' under the supervision of a dietitian. (Not a 'nutritionist' as they have no recognised medical qualifications)

Also, don't make lots of changes all at once, e.g. Fish oils and GFCF otherwise you won't know which has made the improvement if any. You might end up continuing with a tricky and expensive diet for years for no reason.