The Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) was designed to assist parents, physicians and researchers to evaluate virtually any treatment for autism. The Autism Research Institute (ARI) has developed this convenient no-cost Internet scoring procedure that will calculate four subscale scores and a total score from the ATEC. The scores are weighted according to the response and the corresponding subscale. The higher the subscale and total scores, the more impaired the subject.

The only way to determine whether or not a specific treatment is effective is to introduce only one treatment at a time and keep other treatments constant. The amount of time needed to decide if an intervention is beneficial varies. In the case of a few interventions, improvements may become apparent within only a few hours, but in other cases it may take several months before benefits appear. Completing 6 to 10 ATECs over a 2- to 3-month assessment period is sufficient to evaluate most interventions. Some interventions, such as the gf/cf diet and the antifungals for yeast infections, often cause a worsening of symptoms for a few weeks, due to peptide withdrawal or yeast die-off reactions. These are encouraging signs, which indicate the intervention will be effective.

This site is for educational purposes only. Because this information may be used to assess a person's health condition, please consult with a licensed health care practitioner before making any decisions regarding treatment.