REAC and autism

What it targets

Let us begin with the most important thing, so there is no doubt: autism is not an illness to be cured. We are not working to turn autistic children into non-autistic children, and that is not what the research is about either.

What REAC targets is the regulation of the nervous system. A great many autistic children live with a nervous system that is on constant alert. Sensory input that is background noise for others is foreground noise here, all day long. That costs an enormous amount of energy — and that energy is not being spent on learning, playing, eating, sleeping and being with other people.

When the load eases, capacity is freed up. That is where the effect shows: not as a different personality, but as a child who has more to draw on.

What the studies have measured

REAC in autism has been examined in several peer-reviewed studies. Here are the three most important, with the figures they actually report.

Stress load — 46 children

In a study published in Advances in Neurodevelopmental Disorders in 2023, 46 children with autism spectrum disorder received a single NPO session followed by 18 treatments. The effect was measured with the ATEC (Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist), which covers speech and communication, sociability, sensory and cognitive awareness, and health and behaviour.

Improvement was found in between 69.6% and 89.1% of participants across the four subscales (p < 0.005), and the total ATEC score moved from the 7th to the 5th percentile.¹

Functional ability in everyday life — 27 children and adolescents

A study in the Journal of Personalized Medicine the same year followed 27 children and adolescents aged 3 to 17 through the same course of treatment. Here the measure was the PEDI-CAT, which assesses very concrete everyday things: daily activities, mobility, social cognition and responsibility for one's own actions.

There was significant progress in all four areas (p < 0.05).² It is worth noting that the PEDI-CAT does not measure symptoms, but what the child can actually do in daily life.

The newest protocol — 39 children

In 2025, a further-developed protocol — BWO Neurodevelopment-Autism — was examined in the Journal of Clinical Medicine with 39 children aged 4 to 13.

The total ATEC score fell from 67.8 to 56.3 — an average improvement of 11.5 points (p < 0.0001, Cohen's d_z = 0.78, which counts as a medium to large effect). 59% of the children achieved a clinically meaningful improvement of at least 8 points.³

The study also reports that around 10% showed a temporary worsening along the way, which the authors attribute to an adjustment phase. We tell you this in advance, so you are not alarmed if it happens.

How a course of treatment works

1. Initial consultation. We talk with you about your child, the history, what has been tried, and what you would like to see change. We agree specifically on what we will follow up on.
2. First treatment (NPO). Given only once, ever. Takes under a minute.
3. 18 treatments. Each around seven and a half to eight minutes, typically spread over five days. The child sits down. A small probe touches the skin behind the ear. There are no needles and no medication.
4. Follow-up. We talk again after the course, and again later. If it did not help, we say so.

It is not just a device

There is a widespread idea that REAC is something where you press a button and the machine does the work. That is not the case, and the difference matters — especially for a child.

The course sets something in motion. Reactions and changes follow, and they need to be understood and followed up properly. If they are not, you can end up working against precisely what the treatment has brought about. A child whose nervous system has gained more capacity behaves differently — and if the people around the child and the practitioner misread that, the gain is lost.

Both Shirin and Simon have several years of training in carrying out the follow-up treatment. It is not a course in operating a device, but clinical training in understanding what happens in a person during and after a course of treatment. That is also why we take the initial consultation and the follow-up seriously, rather than simply running through the 18 treatments.

A book we recommend to parents

Monica Urru — an Italian psychologist and one of the clinicians both of us have done further training with — has written Star Seeker: Seeing the Autistic Child as a System Under Adaptive Load (2026, ISBN 979-8-19841495-2). The subtitle says exactly what the book is about, and why we recommend it: seeing the child as a system under load rather than as a collection of symptoms. It is written for parents, not for professionals, and it is worth reading whether or not you choose a course of treatment with us.

Who we are

We are two licensed psychologists on Frederiksberg, and we have both done further training with Monica Urru.

Shirin Azour has worked in child and adolescent psychiatry since 2018 and has diagnosed autism as part of her daily work — and has run courses for parents in that context. That is worth saying out loud, because it matters here: we do not talk about autism on the basis of a course, but on the basis of many years of assessment work in psychiatry. If you are in doubt about the diagnosis, we can also carry out an independent psychological assessment.

Simon Secher was an invited speaker at the IEDTA's 12th congress in Dubrovnik in 2026 and works with severe and complex traumatisation.

We work with the whole family around the child — not only with the child.

We also see children and young people for ordinary sessions with a psychologist. Read more about children and young people.