Treatment
There is no permanent cure for CDD - loss of language and skills related to social interaction and self-care are serious. The affected children face permanent disabilities in certain areas and require long term care. Treatment of CDD involves both behavior therapy and medications.
- Behavior therapy - Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA): Its aim is to systematically teach the child to relearn language, self-care and social skills. The treatment programs designed in this respect "use a system of rewards to reinforce desirable behaviors and discourage problem behavior." ABA programs may be designed by a board-certified specialist in behavior analysis called a "BCBA" (Board Certified Behavior Analyst), but ABA is also widely used by a number of other health care personnel from different fields like psychologists, speech therapists, physical therapists and occupational therapists with differing levels of expertise. It is important that at the same time, parents, teachers and caregivers also use the behavior therapy treatments because the research is crystal clear that a consistent approach by all concerned results in greater treatment gains by the child.
- Medications: There are no medications available to directly treat CDD. Antipsychotic medications are used to treat severe behavior problems like aggressive stance and repetitive behavior patterns. Anticonvulsant medications are used to control seizures.
Read more about this topic: Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“[17th-century] Puritans were the first modern parents. Like many of us, they looked on their treatment of children as a test of their own self-control. Their goal was not to simply to ensure the child’s duty to the family, but to help him or her make personal, individual commitments. They were the first authors to state that children must obey God rather than parents, in case of a clear conflict.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)