I'm not involved in this line of research, but my sense (for what it's worth) is that this is still a long way away. TMS is being used as an investigative tool in autism spectrum disorders, but I don't think there have been any clinical trials of it as a treatment - not even sure there have been case reports. The biggest hurdle is the simple fact that we don't know just where to aim. That is, what precise brain regions need to be either revved up or tamped down? In depression, by contrast, we know that there tend to be abnormal activation patterns in the right frontal lobe. And in schizophrenia, we know that auditory hallucinations are associated with increased activity in parts of the left temporal lobe linked to language. What is the equivalent in autism?

I actually look forward to being contradicted here by someone who knows about recent work I've missed.

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond, Stephen! Greatly appreciated!

Indeed, the precise brain region to be targetted is as yet unknown. Thus far, conventional (e.g. figure-of-8) and deep brain TMS studies have been conducted with varying success. If TMS is to be FDA approved for treatment of autism, we need to know which brain region to target, which is the best type of coil and treatment regime, and then a large RCT would need to be conducted with statistically significant results. This will take substantial time to achieve.