I was just wondering how many of you have children with Autism.  I have a 5 year old boy with Autism.  I would love to share information on treatment (ABA ect.).

Yeah, Gun-nut.  We did the Gluten free Casin free diet.  We also did all the dietary supplements.  At first we thought that we saw an improvement, but, maybe we just started looking at him through a microscope.  We then went off the diet (after 6 months)and did not see a change.  We have been doing ABA for over a year and he has been seeing a speak therapist who actually works with different textured doodads that she puts in his mouth as well as different foods.  He is talking really good now.  Like you said, only a few words at 3 years old.  We are going to a place in Houston in October to try a different therapy.  Needless to say, our 3 year old daughter has not received any immunizations.

Thanks Hipwr

Hipwr mentioned something kinda interesting vis a vis light and sound sensitivity.   I'll touch on that in a second.  I have a 2 year old little girl, thank god is healthy, but we debated immunizing her for this very reason - fear of developing autism.  My wife and I decided to do it, but to wait.  I work for a drug company and I sell a drug called Zomig.  It is a triptan class drug that is for the treatment of migraine headache and it's associated symptoms, light sensitivity, sound sensitivity, and nausea.  It works as an agonist for 2 Serotonin receptor sites, 5HT1b&d.  Due to the nature of my job, I've had to become very informed on the science of this drug in particular and Serotonin as well.   Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that effects many of the body's processes.  Some of the literature I've read seems to indicate that some new theories regarding autism are that it is a serotonin imbalance related condition, as explained by the light and sound sensitivity, gastrointestinal problems experienced in these children.  I would be curious to know if any of you parents have heard of any of this sort of thing.  Should such a theory prove to be the case, it would seem that there is a great deal of hope in potentialy this illness.  I will pray for all of you parents.  Having children myself (one born, the next pre-born) I worry about them every minute of every day, that's why I have guns in the first place.  By the way, my wife had to qualify to shoot my AR and my M14 before I married her and my daughter can name the principle parts of my AR's and she's only two.  She's also blonde and blue eyed (wife and I aren't, but she looks like me so no cracks)so she must me a member of the master race.  Just kidding on that on.  Let me know what you've heard regarding serotonin theories and autism.

I am hipwr223's (uh, didn't that used to be 308? hehe) brother in law, and I have a young son with autism. We got him into an ABA program about 2 months after his second birthday and he is now seven.

We've tried it all - speech therapy, physical therapy, diets, etc. (never swam with any frigging dolphins, though). We never saw any difference with any of it. ABA is effective, but the greatest factor for outcomes is the severity of the disorder in a particular child. Some will do well, others not as well, but all will benefit from an ABA program.

We've run home programs and started two schools, one in south florida and one in new jersey (with PCDI). A school is definately the way to go - if you have one, it will attract better teaching talent.

A word of caution: YOU CANNOT DEPEND UPON THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM TO MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICES FOR YOUR CHILD. They will make the right choices for the public school system - by matching available resources and ability to the number of students. The vast majority of these programs are just well intentioned babysitting, run by special ed teachers who may know less about autism and it's treatment than you. A liberal arts degree is no qualifier for treating a neurological disorder.

A second word of caution. If you choose not to immunize your child, have you asked yourself the following question: What is more likely to happen - that my child will develop autism or similar disorders if immunized, or will suffer serious disease because they were not immunized? As a parent, you have a choice, but hopefully you can get the info to make an informed one. (look up Bernard Rimland on the net if you want more info).

I used to be a product manager at the pharmaceutical company that makes the MMR II vaccine (Merck) and have had the chance to discuss the vaccine issue with the researchers. When you look at the epidemeology of autism and it's occurance within the studied populations for the MMR II vaccine, there is no positive correlation between the incidence of autism and the vaccines. This does not mean that there is no link, just that a retrospective analysis of the data doesn't show an obvious one.

Personally, I believe there is a link because the incidence of autism in the population has increased. We need a prospective epidemeology study to see if it's really there or if the data is fooling us. We also need a large vaccine study with the incidence of developmental delay as an end point. I don't know of any companies that are currently doing this.

As for seratonin, Rimland's web site has some material on it. Also, there's a group that formed a few years ago that funds basic research for autism and has some projects working on neurotransmitters. A search of some popular med literature databases will show some studies where SSRIs (drugs like prozac, which allow the seratonin in the brain to last longer) were given to children with autism, but results have been inconclusive (and the study populations are very, very small).

Well, that's all the treatment I can talk for one night. My fingers are tired. See ya.

The Remnant

j-dog,

I teach children with autism as well as children with other disabilities.  My students have a vast array of abilities and are in their junior high, high school years.  The school I work at is an NPS and we focus mainly on mitigating aggressive and self injurious behaviors using applied behavior analysis.

All that said, the best advice I can give you is to make sure you keep advocating for your son.  Many of my children have no active parents and usually get the short end of the stick from the districts, though I luckily don't work for a district so can advocate myself.  Know your rights and use them. Districts ALWAYS grease the squeaky wheel.  But before you squeak see below.

Second, there are many theories and treatments of the day and I have seen several come and go in the several short years I've been teaching.  Make sure to completely do the research before going gung ho into new things.  I was around for the whole "facilitated communication" thing.  I actually took heat from parents for refusing to do it.  The research showed conclusively that it was bunk, yet parents were determined to believe their children were speaking to them.  So just do your research. There are many journals chock full of research. If you don't have access yet, email me and I will tell you where to find them.

Good luck, I have total respect for the parents of children with autism (though sometimes I don't agree with them) cause their job is twenty times harder than mine.  I'm sure you've been there but just in case [url]www.autism.org[/url] is a very useful site.  

I didn't read any of the posts, but I have noticed that alot of the Autisitic are EXPERTS on one field or another.

Just hope that you are blessed with a mathemetic genuis.

You give him the Bullet weight, grains, and the distance an he/she will tell you the comp. for the shot.


BISHOP