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Dentistry and the Autism Spectrum

Dr. Greg Evans DDS www.biggrinswithdrgreg.com In my pediatric dental practice I like to say we treat children. And I like to pause at the end of that sentence. No qualifiers. My father, a junior high school teacher of thirty years, said it a little differently: “They are all good kids, only the time and circumstances have changed” Each child has basic needs, including oral health. Those basic needs do not change based on the developmental age, social environment, or neurological wiring of the child. The circumstances have changed, though. In my early school years, children with special needs were routinely sequestered from the mainstream, and those practices carried over to healthcare. Now the schools show progress, though in healthcare, some of those ‘traditions’ continue. With separation came differences in treatment and different standards of care ,and that has led to a dearth of knowledge within the medical and dental professions…