It's winter and the kids who come to my clinic are catching colds, stomach viruses, and other types of infections. Of course, some are too sick to make it to their appointments. But a few of those that are sick with a fever actually do better. The change in the child's behavior is so dramatic that some parents have learned that when their child with autism or some other neuropsychological disorder starts acting unusually normal they feel their child's forehead to see if the child has a fever.
The improvement can be very dramatic, sometimes like a metamorphosis in which the child with autism or some other neuropsychological disorder suddenly becomes almost normal.
In the case history eBook on my website, Little Bubba's Not Ready for Nashville Yet, I present a case, "The Sometimes Son," where I document the first case I observed. As I state: "Not only parents, but also the staffs at institutions report improvements in autistic children with high fever. In 1980, a viral epidemic causing high fever hit Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in New York. All of the staff there noticed an improvement in the autistic children they worked with. Sadly, after a few days, the fever dissipated and all of the children became autistic again."
