The Experience Miracles Podcast

Autism Regression: The Truth Your Doctor Isn’t Telling You

Sep 10, 2024

Regressive Autism: Early Warning Signs, Root Causes, and How Neurological Care Can Help

Episode 37, Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP, Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Published: September 10, 2024 | Duration: ~64 min

Key Takeaways

  • Regressive autism, where a child develops normally and then loses speech and social connection, typically between 10 and 18 months, accounts for an estimated 20–30% of all autism cases, with 1 in 36 children currently diagnosed with autism overall.
  • Before regression occurs, there are almost always overlooked early warning signs rooted in nervous system dysfunction: difficulty latching, colic, torticollis, skipped crawling, chronic ear infections, and sensory sensitivities, signs conventional pediatricians are trained to dismiss as “normal.”
  • The Perfect Storm framework identifies three categories of compounding stress, physical (birth trauma), chemical (toxins and medications), and emotional (maternal distress during pregnancy), that together overwhelm a child’s developing nervous system and set the stage for regression.
  • Regressive autism represents a state Dr. Tony Ebel calls neurological exhaustion: after months or years of unaddressed Sympathetic Dominance, the nervous system depletes and shuts down developmentally, a state that is measurable with HRV (Heart Rate Variability) scanning technology.
  • Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care addresses regressive autism at its neurological root. Healing follows a predictable sequence: sleep improvement → better digestion → stronger immune function → improved motor planning → reduced sensory overwhelm.

What Is Regressive Autism and Why Does It Happen?

Regressive autism is a type of autism where a child appears to develop normally, reaching motor milestones, beginning to talk, engaging socially, and then loses those abilities, typically between 10 and 18 months of age. It accounts for an estimated 20–30% of all autism cases, and with 1 in 36 children currently diagnosed with autism, it represents a heartbreaking and often misunderstood subset. Dr. Tony Ebel argues that regression is not random or genetic fate, it is the predictable endpoint of a nervous system that has been overloaded from the very beginning of a child’s life.

The root cause, per Dr. Ebel’s clinical framework, is what he calls The Perfect Storm: an accumulation of physical stress (birth trauma, forceps, vacuum extraction, C-section), chemical stress (toxins, medications, and vaccinations in neurologically vulnerable children), and emotional stress (high-risk pregnancy, maternal distress). These compounding stressors create Subluxation and Dysautonomia, nervous system dysfunction that progresses silently through infancy until the child’s neurological reserves are finally exhausted.

What makes regressive autism especially confusing for parents is that children can compensate, sometimes for a year or more, before the break comes. Their nervous systems are remarkably resilient. Pediatricians tell families everything is fine right up until the point it isn’t. This is why Dr. Ebel focuses so intently on the upstream warning signs that appear long before the regression ever sets in.

Why Every Parent Needs to Hear This, Even If Autism Isn’t Your Story [00:00 – 07:45]

Dr. Tony Ebel: This conversation today is about regressive autism, the category, the type. There are technically three levels of autism, and we covered the full picture in an earlier episode. This one gets very specific into regressive autism, but I want every parent to listen. Don’t tune this out if your child doesn’t have autism. What you’re going to learn about sensory processing and neurodevelopment in general is worth staying all the way through, because this is going to be mind-blowing.

Just before recording this, I got done interviewing an incredible woman, a doctor of physical therapy, pediatric specialist, who specializes in the toughest neurological cases, just like we do. Her name is Miss Beth. In that conversation, we talked about a child we worked on together. It was one of our first collaborative cases. We did collaborative care, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and, most importantly, Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care, starting at four months of age, because we had very clear early signs of autism.

We on our team, because we work with these kids every single day and look more granularly, more closely, more analytically than any other provider, we knew this child was heading into the storm. The conventional pediatrician wouldn’t have caught a single one of the multitude of things we found. What Beth and I talked about after we finished recording is that we collectively, this collaborative care team, prevented autism for that child.

I know that statement is bold. In the rest of the world, it’s entirely accepted to call this early intervention. But with autism, the medical system stops short of saying “prevention.” They stop short intentionally of saying “recovery and optimal outcomes.” And the one thing missing from every state’s early intervention program is neurologically focused chiropractic care.

“They’re not going to get to the roots at Harvard. They’re not going to get to the roots at Northwestern. They’re not going to get to the roots in the medical system because they’re looking with the wrong lens. The answers lie in a different kind of doctor who has a different philosophy and perspective that allows them to see the science more clearly.”

I live two lives simultaneously, I’m in practice seeing miracles happen, and I’m in the research making sense of it. Most practicing doctors haven’t read research in a decade. This podcast is the one platform that brings it all together and makes it make sense for you. That’s my job. That’s my promise.

The Perfect Storm: What Was Already Happening Before the Regression [07:45 – 20:00]

If 1 in 36 kids has autism, and 20–30% qualify under regressive autism criteria, then we need to go deep into those weeds. When we talk about regressive autism, you’re going to see the full picture of autism as a whole. Children who never regressed never did so because they never progressed, their journey to autism was more apparent from the start. But for parents of kids who regressed, there’s something uniquely painful: everything seemed fine, and then it wasn’t.

To get you your hope back, let me give you the science and the steps that were likely in play before the regression set in. Out of hundreds, probably thousands, of case histories I’ve taken of regressive autism cases, there’s only one or two where there weren’t clear, very obvious signs of trouble brewing. The difference is that nobody taught you to look for them.

We look at case histories differently than a conventional pediatrician or an early intervention therapy team. To say it’s “different” is the greatest understatement ever. They are looking for symptoms. We are looking for root causes. You have to swim all the way upstream, into the pre-pregnancy journey, the fertility journey, the pregnancy, labor, delivery, and early childhood, to find where the storm began.

The conventional system has finally started saying: “Autism is a combination of genetics and environmental influences.” But then they never open the hood on environmental influences and actually go deep down that road. We do.

What we find, consistently, in regressive autism case histories: IVF or fertility challenges, high-risk pregnancy, birth interventions, C-section, vacuum, forceps, epidural, difficulty nursing, colic, constipation, chronic ear infections, eczema, multiple rounds of antibiotics, skipped crawling, and subtle but important delays in gross motor development.

These are the things that lead a child to have difficulty nursing, difficulty latching, difficulty turning their neck, soothing, sleeping, and digesting. Put that all together and it’s colic. Those kids don’t grow out of colic. They grow into continued sleep challenges, gross motor delays, sensory processing issues, and chronic ear infections that come with antibiotics, which now begin to turn the Perfect Storm into what Dr. Ebel calls the toxic load, adding inflammation and medication to a nervous system that’s already under siege.

Not every kid is the same. Not every kid has the same fertility journey. Not every kid has the same prenatal development. Some pregnancies are very high risk, very high stress. If a mother’s nervous system is under severe stress during pregnancy, that child’s neurological development is going to be affected. The research now confirms it.

As all of this stress, intervention, and toxicity accumulates, it overwhelms a child’s nervous system and shifts it into Sympathetic Dominance, fight-or-flight mode that won’t turn off.

Two Lists: What Doctors Check vs. What Actually Signals Trouble [20:00 – 30:00]

There are two groups of early signs. Both matter, but one of them is what everyone already knows, and one of them is what almost no one outside a neurologically focused practice will tell you to look for.

The typical early signs of autism, the ones that are now widely recognized, include: avoiding eye contact, failing to respond to their name, being unable to point at objects of interest, generally wanting to be alone, failing to acknowledge other people’s feelings (lack of social-emotional development), echolalia (repeating words or phrases from movies or other people), giving unrelated answers to questions, obsessive interests, hand-flapping or rocking, getting upset by minor changes in routine, exhibiting low or zero social skills, and showing unusual sensory reactions, either oversensitivity or under-sensitivity.

I can’t be happier that more pediatricians, more parents, more internet resources are now aware that we can start to see signs of autism in the first 18 months. That list is no longer controversial. But even with that pathway, more awareness, earlier identification, it’s still missing two things. First, it’s missing another list of warning signs to look for. And second, it’s missing an answer to: “Okay, we know trouble is brewing. Now what do we do about it?”

Because here’s the truth: those signs above aren’t the causes of regressive autism. Those are just signs of it brewing. They’re symptoms, effects. They don’t tell us what’s actually happening on the inside of the brain, body, and nervous system.

The commonly overlooked signs of regressive autism, the ones that only a neurologically focused provider is trained to identify, begin in infancy:

Infant challenges: difficulty latching and nursing, trouble soothing and sleeping (colic-like behavior).

Motor system: holding the head up either too soon (with excessive tension) or too late; difficulty with push-ups, rolling over, or sitting up independently; hating tummy time; frequent arching of the back or neck, stiffening, or screaming. These typically come with torticollis (neck stuck to one side) or plagiocephaly (flat or misshapen head). Both are structural signs caused by an underlying neurological dysfunction. When only a helmet or PT addresses the structure but not the neurology, the problem doesn’t fully resolve, I see torticollis in teenagers all the time who “graduated” from PT without ever addressing the neurological root.

Also in the motor category: delayed crawling or skipping it altogether, and delayed walking.

Digestive and immune system: continued reflux, excessive spit-up or vomiting, chronic constipation and eczema, frequent and recurrent ear infections, and other respiratory infections like croup and RSV. If a child is constantly sick and congested, eventually the neuroimmune system gets so off track it contributes to the neurological overwhelm, and kicks them over the cliff into regressive challenges.

Toxic load: frequent use of antibiotics, nebulizers, and other medications compounds the storm. Kids and chemicals don’t mix, whether ingested, inhaled, or injected, especially when the nervous system is already struggling.

“The root of autism is sensory processing challenges. The root of sensory processing challenges is subluxation and dysautonomia. Once you can connect those dots, you’ll be able to make sense of every kind of autism and neurosensory challenge forever.”

The Three Stages of Subluxation [30:00 – 43:00]

Subluxation is the neurologically focused chiropractic term for sympathetic dominance, nervous system dysregulation, nervous system dysfunction, imbalance, or interference. It’s also closely related to a term that explains autism better from a neurophysiological standpoint than anything else: dysautonomia, dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system.

Subluxation is not a static thing. It’s a progressive, compounding process. Once it begins, the thread unravels further, which is why we call it a perfect storm or a vicious cycle. It has three progressive stages.

Stage 1: Sympathetic Dominance. When exposed to physical, chemical, or emotional stress, the nervous system goes into fight-or-flight. That’s exactly what it’s supposed to do in short bursts, it’s your startle reflex, your survival response. But a baby should be the opposite of sympathetic dominance. A baby is supposed to eat, sleep, poop, relax, to be in parasympathetic (rest and digest) mode. When a baby is stuck in sympathetic dominance from birth because of birth trauma, toxins, and other stressors, development is already off track. Their pediatrician will most commonly dismiss this as “normal” and say they’ll grow out of it. They won’t.

Stage 2: Neurological Confusion. Once sympathetic dominance kicks in early and stays stuck, it throws development off track in a specific sequence, first the motor system (delayed milestones), then digestion (altered gut function), then the immune system (dysregulated inflammatory response), then the endocrine system (altered hormones), and finally sensory processing (inability to handle transitions, textures, new foods, noises). These happen in sequence, but all at once, it moves fast.

Stage 3: Neurological Exhaustion. This is where regressive autism comes in. My mentor, Dr. David Fletcher, the world’s foremost expert in HRV (Heart Rate Variability), taught me this framework. He developed the advanced HRV technology we use in our offices (a far more precise version than what you’d get from an Apple Watch or Oura Ring). What we consistently see on HRV scans of children who’ve regressed into autism is neurological exhaustion.

“After you’ve been stressed, wound up (stage one), disorganized and off track developmentally (stage two), for the majority of your life, you eventually go into neurological depletion and exhaustion.”

Neurological Exhaustion: Why the Regression Happens When It Does [43:00 – 48:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: What we find in children who went into regressive autism and just flat shut down developmentally is that their nervous system has likely been under severe sympathetic strain and stress since fertility, throughout pregnancy, and into labor and delivery. There was likely significant physical trauma to their brainstem and their vagus nerve during birth. Then came colic, fussiness, constipation, chronic ear infections, antibiotics, and more interventions, a non-stop onslaught of stress.

Here’s where it all comes together. Children are ridiculously, mind-blowingly resilient and adaptable. They can absorb this perfect storm for six months, 12 months, even 18 months and still be moving forward. Their nervous systems are that powerful. But for a period of time, until the nervous system has become so stressed, so wound up, and so off track for so long, it gives up.

Regressive autism is neurological depletion. The nervous system’s core job is adaptability, resiliency, and handling stress. Every neurological condition in a child can be understood as a nervous system in a maladaptive state, no longer able to do its job.

God designed children to be remarkably neurologically plastic, pliable, resilient, moldable. I see this every day in our clinic through the toughest cases that fly in from all over the world. The fact that some of these children made it 12 to 18 months, crawled a little, walked a little, talked a little, socialized a little, before they fell off the neurophysiological cliff, that’s actually a sign of incredible resilience. In those cases, it often means your child’s adaptability was actually quite high. They held on as long as they could.

But now we know what happened. And once you know, you can finally do something about it. We can’t go backwards and change the fertility journey, the pregnancy, or the birth. My own son Oliver’s birth was about as traumatic as it gets, I’ve talked about that on one of the first episodes of this podcast. We can’t go back. But we can, as I say about everything, fix it forward.

Those children who are now in level three, regressive, nonverbal autism are not just struggling to adapt. They are not adapting at all. They are literally shut down, locked in, locked out of the life they deserve to live. So we need to get into their nervous system and get them out of the neurological exhaustive state.

The Healing Sequence: Body First, Brain Second [48:00 – 58:00]

Dr. Tony Ebel: Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care is not a treatment or a cure for autism of any kind. Chiropractic does not cure, the body does. The nervous system does. We tap into the nervous system and get it working better, and the healing happens from the inside out. Your child’s nervous system is the hero. You are the hero in this story for finding this podcast, finding the right doctors, and making sure this happens.

When a child has severe or regressive autism, they need a significant amount of neurologically focused chiropractic care. PT, OT, speech, ABA, and developmental therapies are all valuable, they work on secondary and tertiary elements of the storm. Neurologically Focused Chiropractic Care goes right into the eye of the storm. Nothing else addresses sympathetic dominance, parasympathetic exhaustion, subluxation, nervous system dysregulation, and dysautonomia the way this approach can.

For a level three, nonverbal, neurologically depleted child, high-frequency care is not optional. Their nervous system is depleted and highly sensitive, so we can’t over-adjust, each individual adjustment is precise and targeted. But in terms of frequency, more is more in the initial stages. In our intensive programs, we typically work with these children daily, or even twice a day, for the first two to four weeks. After that, they often need three adjustments per week for months, because we have to heal the nervous system in reverse, what we call neurological restoration and reorganization.

Here’s something critical for the parents doing everything simultaneously, biomedical, functional medicine, ABA, neurofeedback, primitive reflexes, supplements, homeopathics. If you’re doing 17 things at once and hitting a plateau, or even seeing regression, the “when nothing works” episode on this podcast addresses exactly that. When a nervous system is this exhausted and highly sensitive, more inputs can become too much. Less is more in terms of total interventions, even while more is more in terms of chiropractic frequency.

“Autism ends up in the brain, but it begins in the body. You have to get the body better first to get the brain better.”

What actually happens when these children start getting adjusted is that they begin to heal from the inside out, and they heal in a specific, predictable sequence. First, sleep improves. Then digestion, eating, digesting, and eliminating better. Then immune function, less congestion, fewer infections, faster recovery without medications. Then motor planning and tone and coordination improve. And finally, the one that signals we’re turning the corner to brain-based healing, sensory processing. They can get a haircut. They can take a bath. They can wear certain clothes. Those are called the neurological soft signs of healing.

When parents start reporting those things, that is when we know we’re on track. That’s the body getting better so the brain can follow, speech, communication, socialization, behavioral and emotional regulation, and cognition.

The motor system goes off track first in the storm. So it signals healing first. The brain is doing what the body tells it to do. If the body is completely subluxated, dysregulated, and stuck in the perfect storm, we have to start there.

Action Plan: Finding Your PX Doc and Getting Your Child Scanned [58:00 – End]

Dr. Tony Ebel: Here’s where to go next. You need to find a PX Doc, a doctor who knows what’s actually going on and cares enough to be current on the research about epigenetics, fertility challenges, maternal distress, birth trauma, the perfect storm, and the toxic load theory. Your PX Docs know this, they know it better than anybody else because I taught it to them, and nobody falls asleep in my class.

Step one: find a PX Doc in your region through the directory at pxdocs.com. You know you’re in the right office when they ask questions nobody else has ever asked. If a provider is running through the same steps as every other doctor you’ve already seen, don’t expect different results.

Step two: get a thorough case history. That’s how we do our Perfect Storm pattern analysis, finding your child’s specific triggers. Every kid is different. Some have every piece of the storm. Some have different combinations. We will find them.

Step three: get INSiGHT Scans, neurological scans that include neurothermal readings, EMG, and HRV. These scans are highly visual with color-coded pattern analysis and precise metrics. They’re described in detail at pxdocs.com (link in show notes). What I want you to understand is that there is a very specific subluxation, neurological dysfunction, and dysautonomia pattern to regressive and level three nonverbal autism. Our docs are trained to find it on those scans.

Once we have the case history and the scans, we sit down with you and your child and say: here’s what we found, here’s what it means, and here’s what we can do about it. Not “here’s how we treat it” or “here’s how we cure it”, here’s how we get your child’s nervous system no longer exhausted, no longer disorganized, no longer stuck in sympathetic dominance. We get it calm, regulated, and back online.

One more thing for the families who are already under care and haven’t seen change yet: it takes a long time. The storm began, for many kids, before conception. We know this now from epigenetics. All they’ve known is sympathetic dominance and neurological dysfunction. Installing a new, functional neurological operating system takes significant time and a lot of adjustments.

As long as the scans are improving as care progresses, as long as those soft signs, sleep, digestion, immune function, motor planning, sensory transitions, are getting better, little things in the early stages matter massively. They tell us you’re on track.

Even in the toughest cases, like regressive autism, we’ve got this. We know what’s going on. Not at Harvard, not at Stanford, not in the conventional medical system, because they’re looking through the wrong lens. The answers lie in a different kind of doctor with a different philosophy that allows them to see the science more clearly.

I believe in you, moms and dads. I really, really believe in your child. I know what’s possible. It’s miracles. Expect them.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is regressive autism and how is it different from other types?

Regressive autism is a type of autism where a child reaches early developmental milestones, motor skills, beginning speech, social engagement, and then loses those abilities, typically between 10 and 18 months. It accounts for an estimated 20–30% of all autism cases. Unlike autism that is apparent from birth, regressive autism involves a visible developmental setback, making it particularly disorienting for parents who were told their child was progressing normally.

What causes a child to regress into autism?

According to Dr. Tony Ebel, regressive autism is caused by an accumulation of stressors, what he calls The Perfect Storm, that overwhelms the developing nervous system. These include physical stress (birth trauma from forceps, vacuum, or C-section), chemical stress (toxins, medications, multiple antibiotic rounds), and emotional stress (high-risk pregnancy and maternal distress). When these stressors go unaddressed, Sympathetic Dominance and Dysautonomia build until the nervous system reaches a state of neurological exhaustion and shuts down developmentally.

What early warning signs of autism do doctors typically miss?

Beyond the commonly recognized signs (limited eye contact, not responding to name, speech delays), Dr. Tony Ebel points to neurologically rooted infant signs that conventional pediatricians almost always miss: difficulty latching or nursing, colic, torticollis, plagiocephaly, skipped crawling, delayed walking, chronic ear infections, eczema, constipation, and sensory over- or under-sensitivity. These are not things to “wait out.” They are early indicators of Subluxation and nervous system dysfunction that, if left unaddressed, compound into more serious neurodevelopmental challenges.

What are the three stages of subluxation in children with regressive autism?

Dr. Ebel describes subluxation as a progressive condition with three stages. Stage one is Sympathetic Dominance, the nervous system stuck in fight-or-flight, when it should be in rest-and-digest mode. Stage two is Neurological Confusion, sympathetic dominance begins throwing body systems off track in sequence: motor, digestive, immune, endocrine, and sensory. Stage three is Neurological Exhaustion, after prolonged stress, the nervous system depletes entirely and development stops. This is the neurological state underlying regressive autism, and it is measurable with HRV (Heart Rate Variability) scanning technology.

How does Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care help children with regressive autism?

Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care addresses the root cause of regressive autism, nervous system dysregulation, rather than managing symptoms. For severe and regressive autism cases, high-frequency care (often daily or twice daily in the initial phase, then three times per week for months) is required to move through what Dr. Ebel calls neurological restoration and reorganization. Healing follows a specific sequence: sleep improvement, better digestion, stronger immune function, improved motor planning and coordination, and finally reduced sensory overwhelm. These improvements in body function are what open the door to brain-based healing, speech, communication, and emotional regulation.

How do I find a PX Docs chiropractor near me?

Visit the PX Docs Directory to find a neurologically focused pediatric chiropractor trained in Dr. Ebel’s protocols in your area. PX Docs practitioners are trained in Perfect Storm pattern analysis, INSiGHT neurological scanning, and the specific care protocols designed for children with complex neurodevelopmental challenges including regressive and level three autism.

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