Treatment of Autism?

[JustBusiness17]

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering if anyone has information regarding Autism. My friend's son was just diagnosed earlier this month and he's kinda desparate for anwers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I heard about new treatments that show significantly reduced symptoms to the point of almost full functioning.

His son is one and half years old and the doctors that diagnosed it believed it was important enough to fast track him to the front of the line. They figure that its early enough that they can provide him with a customized learning plan in order to strengthen some of his likely weak points like communication skills and manual dexterity etc.

I was wondering if anyone has studied about this either professionaly or out of curiosity. Obviously the more information my friend can get, the better the treatment can be. I'll appreciate anything that you can share (Objective research would be best of course).


Cheers,

jB

 

[lrkun]

Essential:

1. Seek an expert's opinion. (Go to a doctor who specializes with autism)

2. Weed out non-expert advice. (Don't rely on the medical advice which some forum members may give)

3. Be responsible for your friend's sake.

4. This forum isn't the proper place for something this delicate and serious.

Reason for my reply:

a. To avoid legal issues in case something bad happens, if you apply an advice given by a non-expert from this forum. (Your responsibility and the forum members to whom you relied on)

b. To avoid hurting the child, in the case of a.

c. To ensure proper responsibility.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Tell your friend to avoid Jenny McCarthy, anti-vaccine nonsense, food-allergy silliness, chelation, or any other of the woo-tastic bullshit that people try to foist on desperate parents.

It is hard to tell what works and what doesn't, because autism is a developmental issue with symptoms that lie along a rather wide spectrum. Some kids aren't autistic at all and are simply very late bloomers or have other issues, some are mildly autistic and catch most of the way up to their peers eventually.

 

[Unwardil]

Something I don't think can possibly cause any harm and only has the potential for benefit is to include music and visual arts in the child's education to see if the autism has given them any inherent talent and if manual dexterity is an issue, they will both certainly help with that. Autism can quite often be an incredibly useful trait for an artist, music especially and as I say, there's absolutely no chance that just trying it is going to be harmful.

 

[ArthurWilborn]

I work with autistic kids. Generally, each child needs their own individual plan since the disorder presents differently. Also, I'm a bit suspicious of the diagnosis as one and a half is a tad early to make these determinations; some things look a bit like autism but have a differently pathology.

As others have mentioned, the best advice is negative; avoid the anti-vaccer, special diet, or chelation crap. None of it helps.

The main advice would be for your friend. He wants to start setting up his support network now. Like any disabled child, raising an autistic kid is an ordeal for the parent. Start setting up respite care, with a mind to keep a similar schedule for about the next 20 years. Have scheduled couple times to maintain their relationship with their SO. Start contacting support organizations and see what services they offer. Start learning about non-vocal communication techniques and teaching methods.

"With the Light" published by Yen Press is a good non-technical source of inspiration, but it is a little Japan-centric.

 

[JustBusiness17]

Regarding the Diagnosis:
He was professionally diagnosed by experts who came to their house and observed his behaviour over a course of several days. His primary symptoms are low vocabulary count (he uses between 5 and 10 words while the median is closer to 50 for his age). He has an abnormal obsession with water which is rather unique symptom of autism. He also isolates himself in social situations in order to conduct a very telling type of play style that includes very slow and repetative motor skills. He also has severe tantrums frequently along with a host of other textbook symptoms that are rarely exibited in non-autistic children. My friend even told me that the doctors informed them about certain behaviour to watch out for and how to deal with it before it even appeared in their son.

Regarding Medical Advice:
I have some close family who are involved directly with the medical system and I can assure you that the word "expert" conveys the wrong image regarding health professionals. Each doctor has a unique opinion and a selective education. While its possible to know a lot about a given area, its quite difficult to stay on top of all the research that is produced in the healthcare industry. While patient involvement may be troublesome at times, independent research is very useful if done responsibly.

I would never try to influence the treatment of an autistic child unless it was well accepted or supported by research. Their family is already scouring the internet and I'm afraid he might end up getting some bad information so I figured I would try to educate myself a little with the help of anyone here that knows about the topic. I have a pretty good bullshit filter so I know how to ignore garbage advice. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how good my friend is at filtering out misinformation. I already told my friend to be careful about American based discussion groups because their health care is system is different enough to assume that he'll get better treatment here. He was seriously upset about all the things he was reading online...

Regarding Treatment:
So far, their main priority is on equiping him with communication skills. From what I understand, a lot of the frustration experienced by autistic people and the people they interact with is a result of an inability to understand what is being communicated (in both directions). They have already begun to teach him sign language and are working to socialize him as best as they can. They are also learning skills to avoid the occurance of tantrums by directing his energies towards more productive things that fit in with his condition. He's still very young so I'm guessing that a couple of the more severe problems will subside.

Treatment is supposedly extremely important at this early age so time is really of the essence.

 

[monitoradiation]

I would be extremely cautious in heeding any medical advice on an internet forum, especially relating to children.

If the condition were diagnosed by an expert, I trust that your friend would also have his/her contact; the expert might have some ideas about treatment plans... And since the expert made the diagnosis, he would be in the best position to suggest courses of action.

 

[JustBusiness17]

I would be extremely cautious in heeding any medical advice on an internet forum, especially relating to children.

If the condition were diagnosed by an expert, I trust that your friend would also have his/her contact; the expert might have some ideas about treatment plans... And since the expert made the diagnosis, he would be in the best position to suggest courses of action.

We've now officially established that nothing stated in this thread should be accepted dogmatically. Now we should be able to have the conversation that I intended without any concern.

 

[ArthurWilborn]

Well, I looked up some of the stuff the parents of my kids occasionally recommend. There's no science supporting any of it.

Tell your friend he's lucky the kid is vocal at all. I tend to deal with the profound end where one of our goals is to prevent self-injuring behavior. At that level there's some medication that helps, but if you get to that point it's about picking the lesser evil.

 

[biology4life]

During my time I've taught a lot of ASD kids. Although as they have all been in mainstream education they were all towards the 'milder' end of the spectrum, that is not to say that there where not significant issues.
There simply is no quick fix or panacea as much as we would all wish there to be. A huge mass of nonsense is available on the internet most is just wrong some is dangerous such as the chelation therapy bullshit.
In my experience what children like these need is lots of time and patience, working with ASD kids is very much 3 steps forward 2 steps backwards. However in many cases the proper support by professionals in the field working closely with parents has a real positive outcome but there is no 'cure', it is not so much about treatment as management.

 

[SynapticMisfire]

I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome when I was 20, and most of the people who I socialise with online have ASD's and/or family members with ASD's.

Tell your friend to avoid Jenny McCarthy, anti-vaccine nonsense, food-allergy silliness, chelation, or any other of the woo-tastic bullshit that people try to foist on desperate parents.

There might be an element of truth when it comes to food intolerances. I had chronic digestive problems right up until my late teens; nothing severe enough to put me in hospital, but enough to make me tired, uncomfortable and flatulent a lot of the time. I started experimenting with my diet in my late teens and paid more attention to how I reacted to things, and I found that a lot of what I was eating was disagreeing with me.

I found out that dairy products cause me to produce a lot of phlegm and caused mild flare-ups of eczema, while wheat products cause more severe flare-ups of eczema and produce a mild high when consumed in large quantities. Wheat bran, from high-bran breakfast cereals, gives me really bad acid reflux and a terrible headache if I eat more than a small amount of it. Most legumes leave me bloated and flatulent, though I can tolerate them in small quantities, and I tolerate green peas quite well. Red kidney beans and peanuts can trigger headaches. I got quite a profound and euphoric high from drinking Sunny Delight (original formula), though I don't know why I reacted that way, and I've never reacted like that when consuming other soft drinks.

These days my diet is mostly made up of fruit, vegetables, meat and nuts (not peanuts), which doesn't cause any problems for me. I still have Asperger's and plenty of other issues besides that, but it's eliminated a few of the problems I had to deal with.