Given the many challenges involved in raising an autistic child, parents are willing to try a variety of potential remedies, many of which are controversial and unproven.
A mother discusses how marijuana saved her autistic son's life.

But one potential treatment that has gained attention recently is one that was controversial well before its first mention in connection with autism.

"At first I did some research, and I found a doctor who actually had a protocol for medical marijuana in children diagnosed with autism," Mieko Hester-Perez of Fountain Valley, Calif., told "Good Morning America."

Hester-Perez made her decision to try giving her 10-year-old son, Joey Perez, medical marijuana after his weight had become dangerously low due to his unwillingness to eat. She said that at the time she began the approach, he weighed only 46 pounds.

"You could see the bones in his chest. He was going to die," she said.

"The marijuana balanced my son," said Hester-Perez, noting that she has never used marijuana herself. "My son had self-injurious behaviors. He was extremely aggressive, he would run out of our house... he was a danger to himself and others."

But just hours after she gave him one of the pot-infused brownies, she said she could see a change -- both in his appetite and demeanor.