With the development of autism therapy, acupuncture, an alternative therapy, is becoming popular for autism children. There have been many papers found about the treatment of autism by acupuncture therapy so far. In the present review, the authors briefly introduce the theoretical basis of autism in traditional Chinese medicine and the application history, and sum up the acupoint prescriptions, effectiveness as well as the assessment tools of acupuncture therapy for autism. It is suggested that acupuncture therapy is a relatively effective therapy for autism children. It has positive roles in improving autistic syndromes without any side-effects, especially in improving language development, daily-life self-care, and social communications. The underlying mechanism of this therapy may be explained by acupuncture intervention induced favorable changes of neurochemistry, cerebral blood flow, and cerebral functional activities. Although there are lots of questions to be answered about acupuncture treatment of autism, we hold a positive opinion that this therapy might be a green effective therapy for autistic children in the future.%随着儿童孤独症治疗研究的不断深入,以针刺为主的替代疗法治疗孤独症逐渐成为研究的新热点.本文分析近年来国内外与针刺治疗孤独症相关的文献后发现,针刺疗法对儿童孤独症的治疗总体有效,通过选取不同的穴位可分别改善患儿语言、自理、社会交往等方面的症状,且尚未观察到副作用,其治疗机制可能通过神经化学、脑血流及神经网络联系等方面进行推测解释.针刺治疗孤独症是一种值得进一步研究和应用的疗法.
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