A single round of DMSA chelation therapy may improve the severity of autism.
The purpose of this study was to see if DMSA therapy is safe and helpful for children with autism. The authors used five tools to assess changes in autism symptoms. Three of the tools (PDD-BI, SAS and PGI) showed improved behaviors in the children who were given one round of DMSA therapy, and those who were given seven rounds of DMSA therapy. The authors believe that one round of treatment may be enough for some children to excrete toxic metals. The children who released the most metals (thallium, arsenic, mercury, and lead) were the ones with the most improved autism symptoms.
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Responding to homeopathy
Apr 3, 2011 by Anonymouswitch craft? Perhaps reading some accurate books on the subject may help educate about what homeopathy really is and how it's been around longer than allopathic medicine, which not only creates disease by suppressing symptoms with toxic drugs, but never cures anyone either. Homeopathy focuses on healing the body, the whole body, not targeting one symptom and suppressing it so another illness turns up later. It's been around for 200 years and it does work for many things. Considering allopathic mainstream medicine has nothing to offer children with autism besides drugging them.....perhaps homeopathy could improve their lives and even lead to healing.
If you are a parent considering homeopathy, don't let one nay sayer discourage you from doing some research about it and reading some books to see if this might be a viable therapy for your child.
Seven Special Education Success Strategies
Jul 8, 2009 by Anonymous1. Take Responsibility
It's time you take responsibility for your role as your child's voice in their education and of the state their education is in. This does not mean that you are solely responsible for mishaps, but if we are going to move forward with you becoming an equal member of the team, you must know your role.
From this point forward you will be responsible for consciously choosing the most effective action in any special education situation. You will be in charge of increasing your credibility and influence with the team. You will develop behaviors and actions that will not only improve your own effectiveness, but you will strengthen the entire special education team.
2. Create a Mission
Every parent is given a voice in their child's IEP. It's time to use yours effectively and strategically. No longer will you hesitate on your input into the IEP.
It's time to create your child's Education Mission Statement. This will include a clear definition of educational outcomes at the end of their school career. Included in your plan are descriptive qualities of your child's education that will assist them in achieving their outcomes.
3. Plan for Success
Educational success and mastery does not happen by accident. Only using consistent approaches when collaborating with the IEP team will produce results. You must create a systematic approach that works for you in becoming an equal member of the IEP team.
It's time for you to gain a reputation for excellent follow-through and superior input on your child's top educational priorities. By developing and communicating priorities within the IEP, you will see consistent movement and progress towards the desired outcomes.
4. Develop A Winning Strategy
Team collaboration for IEP success is mandatory. Every team member needs to clearly understand both short and long term education goals. Everyday must be a new effort to achieve.
As an equal member of the team, you can find ways to share recognitions of success without fear of diminishing the weaknesses which still need to be addressed. It's time to create effective, long-term professional relationships with the IEP team. With mutual respect between IEP team members, the child wins.
5. Listen, Learn, Teach
It's your turn to listen, learn and teach. Listening to IEP team members with an open-mind to their perspective can bring new insights to your role on the IEP team. Learning from IEP team members will broaden your information for decision making. Teaching the team your knowledge and expertise about your child will keep the focus on your child's unique needs.
Listen, learn and teach are skills which require practice and adjustment within each team. However, when these skills are mastered you will have greater influence to lead your child's IEP team. You also will develop faster problem solving skills.
6. Cooperate
Understanding differences and how the contribute to innovative and better solutions is key to IEP team success. You never will agree with every team member. Your child needs you to develop the skills to cooperate with their team to create a better program education program.
The action of cooperation includes learning how to value other team members, their knowledge and their participation on your child's team. The goal of cooperation is to integrate every team member's best idea. With integrated solutions, a special education program has the potential to be much greater than an individual strategy.
7. Maintain Accountability
Accountability of all team members, including yourself, is key to long-term success. The purpose of your child's IEP, as stated by IDEA, is to prepare for Further Education, Employment and Independent Living. This is not a sprint of learning, but a marathon in life preparation.
By practicing these 7 strategies consistently you will bring your child's education to a higher level than ever imagined.
Copyright 2009, Precision Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
"Providing you with the information and help you need to change your child's special education outcomes."
Precision Education, Inc. www.precisioneducation.com (815) 302-1273 / (800) 432-0170
Yummy Food or Yucky Food
Sep 11, 2008 by AnonymousOne Person's Yummy Food Is Another Person's Yucky Food
Vegetables and protein (fish, poultry, meats, and beans) are the most common food aversions. Some children even reject fruits. The diet becomes extremely restricted to bland, white foods, including sweets, breads, pasta, crackers, pretzels, chips, and macaroni and cheese. These foods are glycemic and raise blood glucose, quickly increasing the demand for insulin production. Zinc is part of the insulin molecule and is depleted, resulting in abnormal taste and taste perception. What develops is an aversion to the flavors in natural foods and increased cravings for highly sweetened foods and those foods containing MSG. (MSG affects the brain's perception of flavor.) The diet becomes more narrow, and nutritional status declines, resulting in more limited food choices. The white diet and vegetable aversion is common among children in Western cultures due to the high exposure to processed and sweet foods. For children with sensory and developmental issues, the aversions are much more pervasive and serious.
There are three potential contributors that lead to the limited appetite, cravings, and food aversions:
The negative effect of this combination can result in faulty messages from the sensory receptors to the brain and dysfunctional interpretation of those messages by the brain. Perception is the "truth" for that person. This is why begging, bribing, and punishing do not and will not work.
The solution is multifaceted. Correction of nutritional deficiencies and elimination of toxic metals are mandatory and involve appropriate therapeutic supplementation based on findings. Foods that cause reactions and/or opiate-like peptides need to be eliminated as healthy, safe foods are introduced and accepted.
How to Go from Yucky to Yummy-The Trojan Horse Technique
For those with texture issues, it is important to adapt the diet to the child's oral and food developmental stage. If textures are a sensory issue, no matter how tasty the food, it will not be consumed. By providing the food in a sensory-pleasing form, the child benefits nutritionally and begins to find mealtime more pleasant and rewarding. Purees are generally helpful. They are better tolerated and can open the door for getting more types of foods into the diet. Many family dishes, including soups, casseroles, or the meat and vegetable main dish, can also be served pureed for the child who has sensory texture issues. In this way, the whole family is enjoying the same meal.
Many of the recipes in this book have been selected to expand nutritional intake, especially using the Trojan Horse Technique-hiding a small amount of the new food (especially vegetables and proteins) within a very well tolerated and acceptable food. Each child differs and, therefore, it is important to identify what foods will work as "carriers" to get the new foods in.
Purees can be made from cooked fresh or frozen vegetables and/or purchased baby foods. If your child is offended by being served baby food, simply keep it well hidden. Create interesting new names for the foods and see that others in the family join in consuming them. The secret to success in introducing these new foods is to combine a small amount with the food the child already likes. For many children, this is the only way new foods can be introduced.
Start with 1 tablespoon (15 g) or less-and then increase when tolerated. Hide the cooked vegetable purees anywhere you can, selecting colors that are not obvious when added to the carrier food. The carrier food needs to be one that the child enjoys. It may even be a food that is being slowly eliminated. Include pureed fruits to improve the taste. Here are some examples of places to hide foods (and even supplements):
The above is an excerpt from the book The Kid-Friendly ADHD & Autism Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to the Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet
by Pamela J. Compart, M.D. and Dana Laake, R.D.H., M.S., L.D.N.
Published by Fair Winds Press; November 2006;$24.95US/$32.50CAN; 978-1-59233-223-6
Copyright © 2008 Pamela J. Compart, M.D. and Dana Laake, R.D.H., M.S., L.D.N
Author Bio
Pamela J. Compart, M.D., is a developmental pediatrician in Columbia, Maryland. She combines traditional and complementary medicine approaches to the treatment of ADHD, autism, and other behavioral and developmental disorders. She is also the director of HeartLight Healing Arts, a multidisciplinary integrated holistic health care practice, providing services for children, adults, and families.
Dana Godbout Laake, R.D.H., M.S., L.D.N., is a licensed nutritionist in Kensington, Maryland. Within her practice, Dana Laake Nutrition, she provides preventive and therapeutic medical nutrition services. Her practice includes nutritional evaluation and treatment of the full spectrum of health issues affecting adults and children with special needs.
A wild ride
Jun 17, 2008 by AnonymousIt just goes by so fast. All of the planning and preparation to get away for one measly week (not enough time!) and the vacation is over in a flash. We’ve gotten back to normal; the laundry is all done and the bags are all unpacked and put away. We had a really great time, the kids especially! Thomas tried new things this year that we couldn’t get him to do last year and he wore his blue Speedo goggles faithfully all week.
Thomas still has a problem with swimming in the lake. We tried to get him in a few times but the closest we got was when my Aunt Suzy convinced him to splash on the shore. That was better than nothing! The rest of the time, he sat on the pier and watched everyone in the water. My Uncle Jeff and Aunt Paula brought a huge eight-person round floating lounger for people to sit in, and we tried to get Thomas into that too, but he wasn’t going for it. Thomas and Hayley mostly swam in the pools and played with other kids’ toys. We did notice as the week wore on that Thomas was having a generally difficult time adjusting. Going on vacation right after school ends for the summer requires a lot of adaptation on Thomas’ part and we could see that he was really struggling. I find it so interesting that Thomas was clearly having fun and enjoying himself, yet he was struggling inside at the same time. It’s hard to describe that to someone unless they see it firsthand. Thomas was particularly difficult in the evenings while we were trying to get dinner on the table or getting ready for bed. He did a lot of “wrestling” with Hayley (whether she was willing or not). He definitely needs more sensory input at these times of change. Thomas also had difficulty with what experts and teachers call “compliance.” To you and me, that means listening and doing what the hell Jonathan and I say. We had some upsetting times when we had to remove Thomas from group situations because he was being too rough. The last night, we all had a big potluck and ate each other’s leftovers before heading home on Saturday. Thomas was actually hitting us; punching right in the stomach. I realized that he was acting out the boxing game on the Wii because after he punched, he would fall on the ground and start counting to ten. Funny, but unacceptable. I warned him once that if he did it again, we’d leave, so we did. He was really upset and he knew what he did wrong because he kept telling us that he was sorry and that he wouldn’t hit again but we had to put our foot down, especially in front of all those people! It’s interesting how much more motivated a parent is to be firm when there’s an audience, isn’t it?
Thomas did ride the waverunner with Jonathan a couple times. On Sunday in particular, everyone wanted to ride with Jonathan and he was exhausted by mid-afternoon. Thomas dictated whether to go right or left and how fast he wanted to go. He mostly likes to go slow, but he enjoyed it very much. I told him that Jonathan has been dreaming of riding the waverunner with Thomas since before he was born, but I don’t think he gets it. Hayley rode a lot as well. She was very agreeable all week, ready to try any activity that anyone suggested. She rode a lot with my cousin Suzy, but mainly wanted to see the big balloon outside the boat rental place nearby. Whoever rode with Hayley got to idle around the pier a lot.
We went out to eat several times during the week; once for breakfast on the way to Missouri, two nights out during the week and then twice on Saturday on the way home. Thomas kind of ran hot and cold with that. Out of the five times we ate out, two of them didn’t go very well with Thomas. All in all, it was alright. Three out of five restaurant meals were peaceful. On Wednesday night, everyone went to our favorite Mexican eatery, then played mini-golf, then rode go-karts and finally we ended up at the frozen custard place. We all do this every year and it is typically a late evening but we decided to go ahead and try it with the kids. Dinner went fine, but mini-golf was hard for Thomas. He kept saying that he didn’t want to play but we sort of dragged him along. We just kept finishing holes and telling him to come on, come on to the next hole. By the eighteenth hole (I still can’t believe we made it!), he was actually enjoying himself.
Onto the go-karts, and this year Thomas was actually ready to try them! He rode with me in a little two-seater kart and Hayley rode with Jonathan. Thomas loved it! I was driving along, mentally patting myself on the back for helping Thomas to finally overcome this aversion to something we all knew he’d love. He was laughing very deeply in his belly. I’ve never heard him laugh like that! He had a great smile on his face and I thought for sure that we’d just have to find a go-kart track near our house. Unfortunately, Jonathan and I were very short-sighted. We didn’t think about what would come after the go-kart ride was over. Thomas did. After I pulled over at the end of our last lap, I unbuckled our seatbelts and Thomas slid over to my seat and said, “Okay. My turn!” Oh, dear. I took his hand and was able to lead him off the track without much trouble, but he was crying. He was crying very loudly by the time we got back to Jonathan and Hayley, so we picked him up and tried to soothe him. It was kind of sweet, somehow. He loved the ride, but wanted a turn to drive. Next year, maybe we’ll check out another track that said “Mini-karts for kids” on the billboard. God help me, can I actually be thinking of letting my son drive his own go-kart? Honestly, he’d probably be a better go-kart driver than I am.
Thomas recovered from the go-karting disappointment when we told him that we were going for ice-cream. When we got to the custard stand, he said, “Hey! I remember this place!” I’ll bet. I think he remembers it because there is a giant ice-cream cone on a pole outside the place. That’s memorable for an autistic five and a half year-old. A very visual child, Thomas is. Both kids fell asleep on our way back to the resort after what we felt was a largely successful evening.
Now that we’re home again, I can tell that Thomas is trying to re-adjust to being home all day. He doesn’t ask if he has school anymore. I wonder if he remembers from last year that there’s weeks and weeks without school after we get home from the vacation house. The rest of the summer stretches out to what seems like infinity. Yesterday, we visited the park. Today, we visited my mom because we had some work done on the car and she met us at the garage. Tomorrow, there’s an HVAC guy coming to check out our air-conditioning. Enthralling, I know. We’ll go swimming, re-up our zoo membership, basically the same stuff as last summer but I’ll try to keep it interesting. Somehow it always is, and the story of our lives requires no exaggeration.