How to tell apart science from pseudo-science in a field you don't know ?

Watch out for sensory issues. If the kid reacts to, I dunno, styrofoam like it's full of shards of broken glass and he can't bear to touch it, keep him away from styrofoam (there is no training this sort of thing away, although you could get a learned-helplessness oh-they're-torturing-me-again reaction if you tried too hard - and I'm given to understand that some treatment plans do aim at that, presumably because suffering in silence is less disruptive for caretakers than screaming in discomfort). Keeping away sensory aversives frees up brainpower to do other things, as well as being an important form of not-torturing-the-kid.

Treat stimmy behaviors like ordinary fidgeting. They are only weird relative to a framework that an autistic does not operate within. Specifically, they do not say anything in particular about whether he is paying attention, especially to a person who he wouldn't be likely to make eye contact with anyway.

Explain substeps of tasks that do not get understood promptly. (If "get a bowl of cereal" results in the kid staring blankly into space, try "get a bowl out of the cupboard and put it on the counter, open the cereal box and pour cereal into the bowl until the bowl is mostly full, close and put away the cereal box, get the milk out of the fridge and pour it into the bowl until it comes most of the way up to the line of the cereal, put the cap back on the milk and put it away, get a spoon from the drawer and eat the cereal with it". And if that doesn't work, maybe the kid doesn't want to get a bowl of cereal. I'd certainly look funny at anyone instructing me to get a bowl of cereal for no obvious reason or just to see if I could; maybe I don't want any and don't want to perform tricks for someone who is curious about whether I can do them.)

To the best of my knowledge (and I've looked) there is not a single scientific long-term randomized study showing the effectiveness of any type of treatment for autism. This means that when deciding on the best way to help the kid you are going to have to rely on the judgment and intuition of family, friends and special needs specialists. Besides the normal biases the huge problem with doing this is that as an autistic child gets older you would expect him, in an absolute sense, to make improvements in many metrics (just as typical kids do) even if whatever special stuff was being done for him had absolutely no impact on his condition. Another problem is that, based on my observations at least, the women who devote their careers to the needs of "special children" tend to be of the very happy/uplifting/optimistic types which undoubtedly causes them to have a more positive assessment of treatment than should be justified and this bias outlook negatively impacts the research that makes use of the subjective judgments of autistic professionals.

Rather than spending time reading about autism you can probably better help this child by playing with him and doing stuff for his parents so they have more time to play with him, although ignore this advice if you enjoy reading about autism and so your doing so isn't a cost.

To whatever degree you find firsthand reports from autistics useful (and we are able to introspect and such, just in case your reading had led you to believe otherwise - there are some ridiculous misconceptions out there), those are a thing you can look for.

Wrongplanet.net is large, but has had some unpleasant evaporative cooling going on for several years - it may still be a useful place to ask questions. Similarly, reddit has a subreddit for autistics, but the demographic there is affected by the overall tone of the site.

Private blogs are a better bet for thoughtful information - Urocyon has a list of neurodiversity and disability blogs in her sidebar that seems like a decent starting point for that. Also, tumblr has a fairly good autistic community - we tend to post in the actuallyautistic tag, which you shouldn't post in as you're not actually autistic; you can post questions to the autism or autistic tags, and there's a very good chance we'll see them and respond. (Do your research first, though; the standard reaction to uninformed mistakes is derision here just as much as it would be anywhere else. Also, person-first language tends to go over poorly; it's a point of etiquette in the community that we should be referred to as autistics or autistic people rather than people with autism, though you'll occasionally run into individuals who prefer the opposite and that should be respected too.)

You might find this useful, it isn't a source of papers, it is first-hand accounts by autistics and what life and other people were like to them. This one, Don't Mourn For Us, is probably the best general description. A quote from it:

You try to relate to your autistic child, and the child doesn't respond. He doesn't see you; you can't reach her; there's no getting through. That's the hardest thing to deal with, isn't it? The only thing is, it isn't true.

Look at it again: You try to relate as parent to child, using your own understanding of normal children, your own feelings about parenthood, your own experiences and intuitions about relationships. And the child doesn't respond in any way you can recognize as being part of that system.

That does not mean the child is incapable of relating at all. It only means you're assuming a shared system, a shared understanding of signals and meanings, that the child in fact does not share. It's as if you tried to have an intimate conversation with someone who has no comprehension of your language. Of course the person won't understand what you're talking about, won't respond in the way you expect, and may well find the whole interaction confusing and unpleasant.

The best single source I know of is Tony Attwood's Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome.

As a more general response to your title, you need to learn more about the science, and especially pay attention to how the ideas in the field hang together. A less effective method is to consider how well what you are reading relates to what you already know to be true; unfortunately a lot of real science cannot pass this latter test unless you already know a lot of science.

If you're looking for reputable textbooks and introductory reading, I would suggest going to one of the many open courseware sites at major universities (such as MIT, Berkeley or Yale). Look at the courses available for the subject you're interested in (psychology, in your case), find one that matches your interests, and check out the syllabus for that course. It should direct you towards good learning material for that subject.

Here, for instance, is a list of readings from the MIT intro psych class. Here's an MIT class specifically on autism.

UPDATED: It has been pointed out that Autism Speaks still funds research looking for the supposed link to vaccines! People have resigned over this. Do not give your money to this organization.

Some books on autism:

• The Out-of-Sync Child (Kranowitz)
• The RDI Book (Gutstein)
• More Than Words by Sussman (The Hanen Centre)

There is also the 100 Day Kit from Autism Speaks.

The Autism Speaks 100 Day Kit and the Asperger Syndrome and High Functioning Autism Tool Kit were created specifically for newly diagnosed families to make the best possible use of the 100 days following their child's diagnosis of autism or AS/HFA.

You're right. There is a lot of mis-information out there about autism. The problem isn’t you’re a non-expert. It’s that the “experts” really don’t know.

You can't do controlled studies. You can't say to one parent, “Give Jonny OT, but don't give him speech therapy or ABA (or horse therapy), and come back in 10 years,” and tell another parent, "Just give Jonny horse therapy."

That said, a mainstream view is forming. Get speech therapy to help with pragmatics. Get some form of behavioral therapy (ABA, RDI, etc.) Get occupational therapy to help with sensory. Don’t try to do all of this on your own. You want good therapists.

A bad therapist is worse than no therapist. Until you've had a few, it can be hard to tell these apart. There are a lot of bad therapists.

Some other generally accepted good uses your of money (probably!), include:

• some form of behavioral intervention at home (ABA, RDI, etc.)
• some form of behavioral intervention at school

Depending on the part of the world in which you live, the school component might be free. You would do well to keep in mind that free is not be the same as good, or even appropriate. (Remember: No bad therapists!)

I would also get the child in to see a developmental peditrician to create a treatment plan. Your pediatrician probably knows less about autism than you do. You want a specialist.

There are lots of other things you can try, but it’s best to think of these as unproven/highly experimental. I, myself, would probably add another hour of OT or speech (or create a cash buffer) before trying anything else.

To answer your general method query, this essay by Karl Popper deals with the issue of distinguishing science v pseudoscience. However, from my reading of, you need to know a bit about the topic, or at least observe it in action, to make a judgement.

autism/language troubles in particular, are fields in which there is a lot of pseudo-science... There are a lot of mysticism and sect-like gurus related to autism, too.

What gives you this impression? I'm not saying you're wrong - just that it's something I haven't picked up on myself.

Regarding Freud, I get the impression that his therapies have some merit (placebos work; all talk therapies seem to have some benefit iirc) but his theories are utter horseshit. I know a lot of people that work in special needs education, particularly dealing with autism, and there seems to be no real professional consensus as to what the best approach is. I will ask some questions for you though. I'd hazard a guess that it's important to reinforce whatever methods the kid's parents or educators are using, as long as those methods aren't counter-productive.

Observe advocates. An idea only with stupid advocates probably is stupid itself. If you notice someone smart applauding it, look closer. In not popular ideas with few adherents it's probably best to examine the inventor. Don't look to supposed experts as you have no way of evaluating their knowledge.

Thanks for all the answers and support; I wasn't looking as much for actual answers to my situation than to general method on how to dive into a new field, but I do appreciate them. Some of the advices were things I already was doing, but I'm glad to have confirmation I was on the right tracks. Other advices were new and interesting, I'll see how to try them.

I don't want to give too much details on a public site (it's not like my "kilobug" pseudonym is very stealthy, to start), so some advice don't apply to that specific case, but thanks anyway. (Note : I don't mind giving more details in private if one of you has knowledge and the topic and the time to answer me, I would appreciate it a lot, but it wasn't my goal).

For the more general question, I did have a look on PLoS (as suggested), and I did find interesting studies in absolute, but most studies aren't really helpful to actually deal with the child. So I was more looking to comprehensive books, textbook or popsci, that summarize and collects studies, giving practical insights and advises. I did order the "psychology" textbook suggested by MIT, thanks for pragmatic for linking me to it, I'll see how much that'll help me to do further research.

Thanks to all anyway!

I'm very sorry to hear about your friend's son. For whatever it's worth, I think it's awesome you're taking the time to educate yourself in order to better help the child.

Do you have a name for his particular form of autism? You mention it is atypical, and the specific symptoms may be important.

Once you have the particular name, Google Scholar and the Journal of PLoS Medicine may be good places to begin your search. Do database searches for a review article on the particular form of autism.

Review articles are the best way to come up to speed on any given scientific subject. They also provide a massive list of resources for further study. Specifically, look for review articles published in the last few years. To ensure quality, they must be published in a peer-reviewed, academic journal. In this case, peer-review is your best defense against pseudo-science. The more prestigious the journal, the better. IIRC, Science and Nature are the top two of the life sciences.

If you can't find any review articles on his particular form of autism, try to get one on autism in general. Heck, maybe try to do that, anyway. Between those two papers, there should be a wealth of citations for further research. Best case scenario, they cite a recent textbook.

Another approach would be to speak with a professor from a university. An expert in the field, particularly with knowledge of the specific form of autism, would be the jackpot. You can check their CV for a list of published papers and chapters. If their work on the subject is reputable - e.g. published, peer-reviewed, highly cited, etc. - then they are more likely the be a genuine authority. He or she can more aptly answer your questions and point you in the right direction.

To try to answer the title's question, rather than directly answer the post's problem:

For the general problem of discerning pseudo-science from science, there's Massimo Pigliucci's Nonsense on Stilts. What I've read (and heard) by him seems like pretty sound stuff, but I haven't read the book itself. Does anyone have strong opinions about this book?

When bridging an inferential distance, see where you are now, and then see where the experts are. That should help uncover the ignorance of your ignorance and make it possible for you to move towards the experts in knowledge-space. If you don't know where the experts are in knowledge-space, then you can easily stumble along in the dark until you end up at bullshit.

The next course of action is to actually move towards the experts in knowledge-space. Textbooks, expert blogs, wikipedia, classes, and so on are all viable methods for that.

But besides understanding the area well, I think you also want to understand or mentally model autists. In which case, you should become familiar with actual autists (through e.g. documentaries, books, and personal communication).

I'm very sceptical of Freud and psychoanalysis

There is an ancient and noble tradition of burning a straw-Freud, which started during the Freudian analysis vs Jungian analysis and analysis vs behaviorism conflicts decades ago, and it is still used today to signal your allegiance to a specific tribe, usually either skeptical or religious, depending on context. On LW this tradition is honored during the winter solstice, too.

I would recommend against classical Freudian psychoanalysis in this case simply because it was developed for dealing with stuff like this, which is fairly uncommon in our society; and is probably completely unrelated to autism.

I'm sorry I can't give you a more specific advice than this: try to contact families with similar problems and ask what worked for them. Seems to me that no therapy is scientifically proved yet, but I would probably bet on something like CBT.

When dealing with an autistic child, my impression from reading some blogs is that you should not expect any "common sense" at people-related things. Just accept that the autistic child has greater inferetial distances and problem understanding metaphors, therefore explain to them everything very simply and literally.