Recent literature has demonstrated the efficacy and safety of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for catatonia in youth with autism and other intellectual disabilities. Many of these patients also had severe behavioral disturbance, particularly repetitive high-intensity and high-frequency self-injurious behaviors leading to extreme bodily injury, and/or severe autonomic dysfunction including fever, and respiratory and cardiovascular compromise; both types of disturbance were recognized as part of the catatonic presentation and ECT trials pursued. Electroconvulsive therapy afforded significant symptom reduction and offered these children a chance to resume life according to their developmental potentials, often after years of failed psychotropic and behavioral interventions, multiple hospitali-zations, and extensive time away from family, school, and community.
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