Objective: The therapeutic approach of traditional chinese Medicine (TCM) in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a functional one. To study the efficacy, safety and functional brain change from the use of tongue acupuncture (TAC) on ASD children. Methods: 21 autistic boys (3e16 years old) were randomly assigned to TAC group (TAC: n Z 12; receiving daily TAC for 8 weeks) or control (C: n Z 9; no acupuncture). Primary outcome measures included Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC), Reynell

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... nguage Developmental Scale, Symbolic Play Test (SPT), Functional Independence Measure for Children (WeeFIM), Clinical Global Impression (CGI) Scale and Cerebral FDG Metabolism by PET. Results: There were significant improvement in speech domain of ATEC (p Z 0.030), Self-care domain of WeeFIM (p Z 0.021), cognition domain of WeeFIM (p Z 0.001) and Total score domain of WeeFIM (p Z 0.001) in TAC group compared to the C group. There were significant difference in positive clinical response between C and TAC group in language (p Z 0.0211), functional (p Z 0.0011), parental Impression criteria (p Z 0.0003) and overall cerebral glucose metabolism (p Z 0.0451) using ROC criteria. No significant association of PET Glucose Metabolism with Clinical response was found. None of the children developed any side-effects.