Autistic Schizophrenic Children: An Experiment in the Use of D-Lysergic Acid Diethyladmide (LSD-25)

From the summary (as no abstracts were provided at that time):Twelve children, ranging in age from 5 years 11 months to 11 years 10 months, who attended a day school for schizophrenic children, were given LSD on 14 different occasions. Ten of the children received 100µg one received 50µg, and one had 110µg on one occasion and 200µg on another. The drug was administered orally in a vehicle (Coca Cola, orange juice, etc.) which the children liked. All the children were of the autistic type and all were mute or nearly so.The effects of the drug appeared an average of 20 minutes after its ingestion and lasted about 4 hours. Somatic effects of the drug included facial flush, dilatation of pupils, some catatonia, some ataxia, complete loss of appetite, increased body awareness, and desire for physical contact. Psychic effects included rapid mood-swings from elation to depression, anxiety, or flattening of affect, auditory and visual hallucinations, decreased alertness in most but increased alertness in a few, increased remoteness, decreased eye contact in several and increased eye contact in a few, and increased vocalization and verbalization. The hoped-for change from muteness to speech did not occur.