For TMoB types who don't follow me on Twitter, here's a paper http://www.indianjpsychiatry.org/temp/Indi...-6711388_183833.pdf (that's a free pdf) best summarized by a statement in the abstract:

"We report here a case of autistic disorder who recovered spontaneously without any intervention in 13 days."

This was a 5yr old boy, "P," whose CARS scores plummeted from 40.5 ("severe autism") to 18 in less than two weeks. The lowest anyone can score on the CARS--the score you get if you are deemed absolutely typical (per the traits and abilities addressed by the CARS)--is 15. The threshold for autism is 30.

The study's authors falsely claim that Temple Grandin has "recovered" from Asperger's (and claim that this has been documented via "authentic, scientific reports," none of which is cited). A 1974 study that I'm familiar with, about 2 children "recovering" from autism (Gajzago & Prior, 1974), is referenced as well as the paper reporting on Catherine Maurice's two children (Perry et al., 1995).

About the children who are reported as "recovered" in Lovaas (1987) and McEachin et al. (1993), the authors write, "Outcome of specific autism symptoms was not described in these reports." Lovaas et al. get lumped in with reports of "recovery" from the Autism Research Institute: "it is difficult to be sure about the level of recovery in the above instances." There is no mention of the work of Deborah Fein and colleagues, which the authors somehow missed in their reported PubMed and google searches.

The authors write: "We have not come across any other case in which recovery took place spontaneously and so rapidly." They point out that while this might be rare, those working with autistic children "must know that this can happen."