The Effect of Diet and Vitamin Manipulation on Communication in Autism: a Case Study

The purpose of this study was to examine how behaviors of communicative intent were effected by diet and vitamin manipulation. A three-year-old male diagnosed with autism and exhibiting signs of the intestinal yeast infection, Candidiasis, was the subject of this study. Videotape was analyzed to obtain simple counts of nonverbal, vocal, and verbal communicative behaviors during four conditions over an eight month period. The conditions were: (a) Condition I, no speech-language therapy (SLT), and no diet/vitamin therapy (DVT) ; (b) Condition II, SLT only; (c) Condition III, both SLT and DVT; and (d) Condition IV, DVT only. Support for SLT was demonstrated. Support for DVT, however, was not exhibitied. Limitations of this study, anecdotal reports in support of DVT, and suggestions for future research were discussed