Pilot Study of the Effect of Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment on Behavioral and Biomarker Measures in Children With Autism

During the study's 20-week duration, all children will receive Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment (HBOT) for two eight-week sessions, with a four week session between. Therefore, all children will participate in the study for 20 weeks, and will receive HBOT for 16 weeks. This is an open label study. This means that there will not be a placebo group in the study. All study participants will receive the same treatment of HBOT in a hard shell chamber. Normal air contains about 24% oxygen at a pressure of about 1 atmosphere absolute (ATA). The chamber will contain 100 percent oxygen at a pressure of 1.5 ATA, which is equivalent to the pressure at a depth of 15 feet in sea water. Each subject will complete the first 40 treatments during one hour sessions on 5 separate days in each of the first 8 weeks. They will then take a 4-week break before they begin their next 40 treatments, which will also occur during one hour sessions on 5 separate days in each of the last 8 weeks. The entire study will last 20 weeks. The child's behavior will be measured and evaluated at the MIND Institute at the beginning of the study, at week 8, and at week 20.

Inclusion criteria

• Diagnosis of DSM-IV defined autism and meets cut off for autism on the Autism Diagnostic Inventory-Revised (ADI-R) or Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Scale (ADOS).
• Age 3 to 8 years.
• Nonverbal IQ of 50 or above.
• Parental agreement to continue present dietary, behavioral or psychotropic drug treatment but not change treatment during 20 week intervention.

Exclusion criteria

• Clinical evidence of seizure disorder
• Active infection with fever
• Fragile X or other known genetic cause of autism
• Perinatal brain injury (e.g. cerebral palsy)
• Previous adequate trial (at least 20 session) of HBOT
• Inability to clear ears in the HBOT chambers