The Fever Effect on Autism Triggers New Views on Treatment

A change that comes over autistic children when they have a fever has profound implications for the nature of disorder—and how to treat it

What makes this idea so groundbreaking—so earth-shattering—is that it challenges the whole presumption that autism is some kind of static, irreversible brain disorder Ermolaev Alexander/Shutterstock

Autism currently affects about one in 68 kids in the United States. There are no drugs to treat the core symptoms, never mind the underlying disorder itself—and the disorder appears to be on the rise. But what can we do about it?

Decades ago, a clue was published. A study called Fever in Autistics was published in Nature and it offered a ray of hope: “When autistics have a moderate fever, they invariably display dramatically more normal behavioral patterns, including a greater desire or ability to communicate,” wrote researcher Rodney Cotterill in 1985.