Packing therapy may be helpful for people with autism who also have catatonia.
Catatonia is a condition that may include rigid muscles, and little or no response to other people. Packing therapy is a type of therapy that is usually provided by occupational therapists. The occupational therapist wraps the entire body of the child in damp cloths, leaving the head and face unwrapped. The therapist encourages the client to talk about what they are feeling while wrapped. This study tested 6 patients (13-17 years old) with catatonia who did not improve when treated with drug therapy. One patient also had autism, and another Asperger's syndrome. The authors said that packing therapy helped 4 out of the 6 patients, including the 2 with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The authors encourage therapists to consider packing therapy as an option.
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Social Skill Builder
Feb 16, 2010 by meganSocial Skill Builder, Inc. was founded by speech pathologists and sisters Jennifer Jacobs M.S. CCC-SLP andLaurie Jacobs M.A. CCC-SLP in 1999. Social Skill Builder provides appropriate tools for teaching social skills to children affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other language/learning difficulties.
Because social interaction between people usually happens so quickly and naturally, it is hard to teach these skills to children with social competence difficulties. Social Skill Builder software programs allow children to dissect social situations in a safe and controlled environment, with the opportunity to replay scenarios for greater understanding. Such practice provides children with greater insight into social interactions and increases their confidence as they try out new skills in their real-world environments.
Social Skill Builder has created a series of learning tools, targeting preschool through young adults, which use real life video in computer assisted programs to teach social skills. The user is able to watch the video scenarios unfold and then make choices about what should be said or done next in a safe and controlled environment. These interactive features allow the child or adolescent to step inside familiar social situations to problem solve or predict outcomes. Motivating reinforcements and games make learning the social skills fun and entertaining. This unique training software provides a reference for language, behaviors and interactions that children can carry into the natural environment.
Social Skill Builder's products are designed for speech and occupational therapists, educators, counselors and psychologists, and parents who interact with children and adolescents ages 3-18 affected by ASDs and other learning/language deficits.
You can find more information regarding our software at www.socialskillbuilder.com
The Effect of Early Intervention in the Progress of Autistic Child with Mental Retardation
Nov 18, 2009 by AnonymousINTRODUCTION:
Autism is an incapacitating life long developmental disorder that typically occurs in the first three years of life. Children affected with autism have disturbances in three main areas like social skill, communication and eye contact. There are many causes for autisms some are environmental and some are genetic. Since definite cause is yet to be known it cannot be cured completely. An attempt was made in the present study to know the effectiveness of different types of therapies and treatments. Parental opinion was collected from the children affected with autism. Findings indicated that most of the parents have positive views on standardized therapies, innovative therapies and treatments. Modification in behavior is possible through early intervention by therapies and treatment.
Present Study: the present study finds the effect of early intervention in the progress of autistic child with mental retardation. Investigator considered three major areas, which were generally used in progress of the autistic child, they are as follows:
Comparison between different types of standardized therapies: When different types of standardized therapies were compared with arithmetic mean, it was found that occupational therapy and speech therapy was found to be more effective compared to other type of therapies.
COMPARISON BETWEEN STANDARDIZED THERAPIES
Comparison between different types of Innovative therapies: When different type of innovative therapies are compared with arithmetic mean , it was found that touch therapy and Art therapy was found to be more effective compared to other type of therapies.
Comparison between different types of treatments: When different types treatments are compared with arithmetic mean, it was found that Diet and special diet treatment, was found to be more effective.
Major Findings of the Study
SUPERVISOR: D.r.A. RAMAKRISHNA PROFESSOR, IASE, OSMANIA UNIVERSITY
INVESTIGATOR: K.SAILAJA
Scope of Ayurveda in ASD by Vaidya Prasad
Nov 13, 2009 by AnonymousTrials with Ayurvedic medicines and treatments for their efficacy in ASD are going on at various centres in India and abroad. The main advantage of ayurvedic medicine is that it has got a magazine of safe therapeutic preparations of various forms which are developed by continuous trials and rectifications over thousands of years. There are many preparations like kwatha (decoction), churna (powder), arishta (self-fermented beverage), gudika (pill), ghrtha (medicated ghee), thyla (medicated vegetable fats) etc. In recent times, many of the herbs used in Ayurveda are proven to have excellent detoxifying effect as well as free radical- scavenging potential. The therapeutic preparations like kwatha are combinations of many herbs. These combinations are originally developed on the basis of ayurvedic principles. Till recent times these formulations were not given due consideration by the western scientists. But now the picture has changed. More and more ayurvedic preparations are under their evaluation. In Ayurveda, the compounds as well as single herbs are used for different purposes of health care like pacifying vitiated functional units called doshas, eliminating excessive toxic accumulations, providing targeted nutrients to tissues, tuning the mind-body coordination, sharpening the efficacy of sense-organs, and so on. These prescriptions are based on personalised evaluation of different aspects like body constitution, doshik status, power of digestion and assimilation, status of bowel evacuation, physical strength, mental constitution, and etc, which is done by experienced physicians. Mind is an important factor in the healing of any ailment. It is assumed that mind is like ghee, which is held inside a pot called body. If the ghee is hot the pot also gets warmed and if the pot is hot definitely the ghee also will be hot. You cannot expect warm ghee in a cool pot and wise versa. Similarly, food is given the supreme role in the healing process as well as in the maintenance of health. It is a basic concept in Ayurveda that there is no use for any medicine if one stick on to pathya (wholesome) food (as it brings about health spontaneously) and there is no use for any medicine if one stick on to apathya (nasty) food (as there is no scope for functioning of the medicine). In the context of autism, these assumptions are extremely important and seen exceptionally beneficial.
The care of autism, as per ayurvedic principles, is based on the protocol of a three-step intervention.
Again, though the stages are generalised the execution will be personalised.
The first stage is based on medicines almost completely. Medicinal preparations like purgatives, specific formulations for de-worming, for enhancing the functions of the liver and pancreas, for enhancing the digestive fire (Agni), and for regulating the intestinal motility are used in this stage. Certain preparations meant for squeezing out heavy metals from the tissues are also used. Turmeric, garlic, curry leaves, etc are having this advantage.
Second phase is mainly comprised of massages. Traditional methods like abhyanga (hot-oil massages), udwarthana (dry powder massages), pindasweda of various types, thalapothichil, pizhichil, etc are used here. These manoeuvres improve the muscle tone, reduce hyperactivity, create better motor coordination, and normalize most of the obsessive repetitive movements. Child sleeps well. The bowels become more regular at this stage. He/she will be more receptive to commands or suggestions. The demand for sensory stimulation slows down considerably and the symptoms like increased sensitivity to certain sounds (hyperacusis) slowly disappear. There will be oral medications parallel to the therapies and a few of these medications will be carried over to the next phase as well.
Third stage is very specific and sold not be started before the proper completion of the first two. This is an important point as there is a general tendency to mark the condition as mental retardation and to prescribe brain tonics and memory boosters to all autistic kids indiscriminately.
The major therapies in this stage are shirodhara (pouring of liquids like oils on the head), shirovasthi (holding of medicated oils on the head inside specially designed leather-rims), shiropichu (wetting the scalp with oil bandages), dhoopanam (fumigation with specific medicines) etc along with specific medications like kallyanakam kashayam, indukantham kashayam, gorochanadi gudika, balakanakapathradi kashayam, sidharthakam gudika etc. Certain specific herbs like sahadevi, sankhapushpi, vacha, vishnukranthi etc are also used. Follow up is done with ghee preparations like mahakallyanaka, mahapaisachika, brahmighrtha, saraswathaghrtha, etc.
It is seen that the classical ayurvedic treatment done systematically give promising results in kids diagnosed with ASD. But it should be emphasised that the level of improvements is different from child to child. Another important point is that these interventions are made in a corrective manner. The child gets relieved of a lot of physical problems and tantrums. But this will not make him/her a normal child. Intensive training and special education are needed to put him on track and to catch up the peers. This requires the dedicated involvement of parents, special educators, and skilled professional like occupational therapists.
I'm on-board...by myself
Jan 23, 2009 by dankohnWinter stinks. I'm serious. I've had it up to here, literally, with the snow. And I can't stand the cold. The older I get, the harder it is for me to just breathe outside in sub-zero temperatures. The Norman Rockwell imagery is only enticing up to and including Christmas. After that, those images get old. As winter goes on, they become a source of contempt and scorn. My sister lives in California and she laughs and laughs when she says, "Gee, it sure is cold here. It got down to fifty degrees overnight!"
Strangely enough, the cold weather seems to affect the kids not at all. Last week, the kids had an unexpected five-day weekend. School was cancelled Thursday, Friday and Martin Luther King Jr. Day was Monday. A nice little mini-break during which we had NOTHING to do because we couldn't leave the house. Actually, the car did start on Thursday so I took the kids to Target. We wandered aimlessly before picking up Jonathan's blood pressure medications and then one of the wisest, most useful purchases I've ever made: a heated mattress pad. It's wonderful. It's like slipping into a hot tub in bed at night. I can't stand sheets made from anything other than at least 250 thread-count cotton, so flannel sheets are out. I need smooth, but the cotton ones get so cold. Ha - not anymore. Thanks for the gift card, Aunt Sally! We used it well.
Speaking of beds, Thomas is still playing musical beds at night. He is getting better, though. He will come in every other night or so. This morning, he did wait until after Jonathan got up for work to come into our bed. That's our little rule; they can't come in until Daddy gets up for work. Hayley disregards this rule entirely. She usually comes in around 1 a.m. (I think...) but she's such a good snuggler. If I'm still up when she comes in, I send her back to her bed. Lately, since we've been using this heated mattress pad, if I've got mine on (there are separate controls for each side of the bed) and Hayley's snuggled up against me, I wake up soaked with my own, and also some of Hayley's, sweat.
Thomas has been doing really well in school. Last Tuesday when I was in class, the teacher had each of the kids take a dry-erase board and a marker and sit on the floor and practice writing words. This seemed like something we could do at home, so I took a huge dry-erase board from an easel that nobody uses, cut it in half with a jigsaw, and now Thomas and I spend a few minutes every day writing what his teacher calls "popcorn" words; words that come up in conversation a lot. Words like can, today, we, him, she, it, etc. I also pick a really simple book from our shelf and try to get him to sound out words with me. Most of the time he is very reluctant and complains and whines about it. The fact is that he simply does not like to read or write. He might like to read if he learned how, but I don't think that writing will ever be his favorite thing to do. Hayley loves to do it mostly because she lives for praise from grown-ups. Thomas gets shy and anxious when Jonathan and I praise him for his efforts. We try to keep that kind of thing to a minimum, just saying, "Good, okay, what's the next word?" If we don't jump up and down and clap our hands and shout, he's okay. Hayley loves the jumping and clapping.
Today Thomas saw the occupational therapist. She came out to talk to me while the kids were getting their coats on. She mentioned how much improved Thomas is at writing his name. When we try to write it at home, Thomas makes such big letters or he starts writing in a spot that doesn't give him enough room to finish his whole name. The OT gave him a very long strip of paper today, so he was able to fit all the letters on it. He sometimes makes the letter "s" backwards, but she told me that they don't get concerned about that until second grade. He also needs to work on his lower-case "h" and "n" since they look very similar. Other than that, she said he's doing really well and she's noticed an improvement. Something I forgot to ask her was if she's noticed Thomas needing a lot more OT since after winter break, which has always been a hard time for him. Nobody has said anything and the extra OT minutes are built into his schedule this time of year, so if he needs it, he's getting it.
So far, we haven't noticed any side-effects from the Strattera. I don't know if it's really doing anything for him, but that's what we said about the Focalin until we took him off of it. It had been making a tremendous difference...along with a disconcerting facial tic. Jonathan works with a woman whose boyfriend's son is autistic with symptoms of ADHD. She said that this young man had developed an extremely pronounced facial tic while taking Ritalin or Focalin or something...one of the stimulants, anyway. She said that he was switched to Strattera too and hasn't had any tic problems and the medication seems to work for him. Thomas has been taking it for just over two weeks. The doctor said it needs to ramp up in his system for about four weeks before we might notice a difference, so I'm counting the days. I'm also supposed to call her around February 7 to let her know how things are going. She may decide to raise the dose from 10 mg to 18 mg. The lower dose of Focalin didn't produce a facial tic, but the higher one did. We'll see. At least we don't get bored, having to constantly observe our child for signs of one of the millions of side-effects of these meds.
I had the chance to speak to an old college friend of mine that I got in touch with on Facebook earlier this month. It just so happens that his own son was diagnosed with autism as well. He and his wife are 100% sure it was the 18 month MMR shot because he had been doing fine; meeting milestones and developing normally until he had that shot. He lost all of his words over the course of the week following the shot and was a completely different kid one week after the shot. I know that there are a lot of people out there who have dismissed vaccines as a cause of autism (mostly doctors and drug companies, no?), but it's stories like this one from my friend that really make me wonder.
I'm starting to think that autism is not caused by one thing only. I think that vaccines could cause it, but I don't think that Thomas' autism was caused by a shot. He never "lost" words; he just never had any words to lose until he started speech therapy. I really wonder a lot about the flu shot I had in my third trimester with Thomas; my doctor told me to get one, so I did. I wonder if something funky happened with that. The other possibility is that Jonathan was working on a job site during the time Thomas was conceived and while I was pregnant. This site was known to have heavy metals in the soil and Jonathan had to have blood tests before he started working there and after he finished the job to make sure he wasn't poisoned. I don't know if that kind of thing can get into sperm; it would seem that if it did, the sperm would be incapacitated and therefore unable to do its genetic job. Who knows? I'm not a doctor. But I do wonder if Jonathan went to work, put his dirty (heavy metals-laden) jeans and socks in the laundry basket, and then I handled those clothes, shaking them out occasionally and probably releasing all kinds of toxins in the air that I must have inhaled. It's my best guess at this point.
My friend with the autistic son pretty much considers his boy "recovered" due to their strict gluten and casein-free (GFCF) diet. I've really been wondering if we should try it. Of course, this is no time to be spending hundreds more per month on groceries, but I do wonder if Thomas would benefit from it. Jonathan does not want to do it, but purely for selfish reasons, I think. If one person in the house is GFCF, the whole family has to be. I must admit, it would be hard for us; I myself am a bread and pasta junkie, but if Thomas could "recover," my God - how could we not do it? I'm going to check out my buddy's wife's website, gfcfdoneeasy.com, and see if it really can be done easily. For as hard as it would be on Jonathan and I (I don't think Hayley would care much; she never eats that much anyway), it would hands-down be hardest on Thomas. I'll have to think about it a lot more, but I'm really beginning to think we should try it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work and we can go back to our usual eating habits. But what if it does work? I've heard different statistics about it, saying that anywhere from 60% to 80% of autistic or special-needs kids benefit in some way from a GFCF diet.
The problem is, we all have to be on-board. Right now, I'm on this little board all by myself.