Autism Spectrum Disorder

Families usually arrive at this page after exhausting a great deal else. We will be careful and honest about what is known, because parents deserve that more than they deserve optimism.

What Autism Spectrum Disorder Is

Autism is a developmental disorder with several recognised presentations, historically including Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder and childhood disintegrative disorder. Children and adults on the spectrum experience difficulty with communication alongside social and behavioural challenges, which is why diagnosis usually happens early.

Signs most often become apparent between the ages of two and three, though they can be identified as early as six to twelve months. Diagnosis is more common in boys. Early indicators include:

- Limited or absent eye contact

- Not responding when called by name

- Difficulty expressing pleasure or joy

- Delayed or difficult speech development

- Distress at small changes in routine

- Repetitive movement such as rocking, jumping or hand-flapping

Severity varies widely, and how a person learns, thinks and interacts determines how much support they need. Some individuals also experience severe anxiety, depression, frequent seizures, tics or episodes of anger.

The Ben-Gurion Research

The most substantial work in this area comes from researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, who studied patients with autism aged eighteen and under to assess cannabis against the more severe symptoms: seizures, tics, anger episodes, disrupted sleep and depression.

Patients were treated between 2015 and 2017 in six-month intervals. More than eighty per cent of parents reported improvement. Outcomes were not uniform, but the changes parents described included:

- More positive mood

- Greater independence in dressing, washing and other daily activities

- Reduced restlessness

- Improved concentration

Most parents reported an overall improvement in quality of life, which in this context is the outcome that matters most.

Is It Safe for Children?

The honest answer is that the research base is limited, and we will not pretend otherwise. There is not yet a large body of scientific data supporting cannabis as a treatment for autism in children. That is a reason for caution rather than a reason to dismiss it, particularly for families managing severe symptoms with few remaining options.

What can be said is that cannabinoid preparations are natural, are dosed precisely, and have a gentler side-effect profile than many of the pharmaceuticals prescribed to children. Reported benefits include relaxation, improved sleep, and relief from the anxiety, irritability and depression that often underlie anger episodes.

No child will be smoking anything. Oils are administered under the tongue or incorporated into food.

Paediatric Care More Broadly

Paediatricians manage far more than growth monitoring and vaccination. They care for chronically ill children and for a wide range of physical and psychological diagnoses including allergies, anxiety, asthma, autism, birth defects, bladder problems, bone disorders, diabetes, depression, dyslexia, epilepsy, heart disease, insomnia, parasitic disease, skin disorders and tumours. Cannabinoid therapy has a potential role in the symptom burden of several of these.

The context is significant. Cancer remains one of the leading causes of death in children, most commonly brain cancer, leukaemia and bone cancer. Roughly one child in twenty-five is born with a birth defect, and approximately one child in fifty between the ages of five and seventeen is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

The Paediatric Dosing Research

In August 2018, researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto established a safe dosage of both THC and CBD oil for children experiencing frequent seizures and for children with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy that can begin in infants as young as six months and from which an estimated ten to twenty per cent of patients do not survive into adulthood.

The study concluded that the dosage administered was safe and that it improved overall quality of life by reducing seizure frequency, with some children experiencing seizure-free days. Cannabis oil also tends to produce fewer side effects than the pharmaceutical alternatives commonly prescribed to children.

This matters for families as much as for patients. Watching a child endure repeated seizures is its own kind of harm, and the establishment of a safe paediatric dosing framework was a genuine turning point.

The Wider Symptom Picture

Cannabinoids act on cell receptors and serotonin signalling that govern thought, feeling and movement. Low serotonin is linked to depression, mood instability and nausea, all of which frequently accompany treatment for cancer, diabetes or heart disease in children.

Where cannabinoid therapy is appropriate, families report improvement in seizure activity, nausea, weight maintenance, mood, bladder control and continence, anxiety levels and sleep.

Your Treatment Plan at Cura Vida

Paediatric and autism cases are handled with additional caution and full family involvement, always in coordination with the child's paediatrician or specialist. We will tell you clearly where the evidence is strong and where it is not. Medical cannabis treatment should always be supervised by a qualified physician.