Most of the parents/children that come to my office have already been diagnosed as being somewhere on the autism spectrum. Many times they come in with multiple issues as is common among the autism spectrum. That is, we will see a child ADHD and OCD features. Perhaps, Tourette’s syndrome with OCD features or PDD with ADHD. For those of you that are familiar with the hemispheric integration model, this makes perfect sense and is fairly common. Most parents come in with a multitude of records psychological evaluations. Many times they have been to a biomedical/D.A.N doctor and have had considerable amount of lab work and specialty testing. This is great for me as I have the benefit of all this additional information quantified before I begin to form my own impression. As of late, some folks in Tampa have begun to recognize me and asked me a few questions while I am out and about in the community. These questions as of late have been with regard to “Do you think my child may be autistic? “as opposed to”Do you think you can help my child?” Many times the answer is quite obvious, but many  times it is not. Of course making a diagnosis on the street without the child  even being present is difficult and not very professional. However, I understand that people are looking for help and answers. Since this is in my hometown, I usually refer them to our support group or this blog for information. That assumes of course that they are not ready to make an appointment for a consultation. I found this autism screening questionnaire on a wonderful website that I thought I would post a link to. As always, I hope this is helpful. 

http://autism.lovetoknow.com/Autism_Screening_Questionnaire

Here’s a video clip from a story WFLA the local NBC affiliate did on us.
The success story of a mom in a desperate search to find treatment for her autistic child.

Video Clip for WFLA Channel 8 Story \”Sought Treatment\”

A major part of Hemispheric Integration Therapy and the functional neurology approach to the treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders deals with the term “Functional Disconnect Syndrome.” A Functional Disconnect Syndrome is a situation where connections between neuronal pools do not work at a level synchronized enough for normal behavioral and executive function of the human brain to take place. This may result in difficulty with language, social skills and learning among others. Allow me to attempt to clarify that in plain English. The disconnect refers to different areas of the brain not being connected in the sense that the areas do not communicate well with each other. This suboptimal communication relates to the fact that “the wires are there, they just are not working well. That is to say, if the wires between brain circuits were cut, then we would have a physical disconnect syndrome as there would be a literal disconnection. In this case, the wire are there, connected but they are not functioning well. This under functioning causes poor communication between the areas as though there were some physical damage when in reality there is not. It is for this reason that if we perform an MRI of the brain of a patient with Autism Spectrum Disorder it seems relatively normal. That is, there is no tumor, infection or vascular accident for example present to explain the child’s symptoms. Think about it, if the child did have a tumor, then his diagnosis would be “brain tumor” or “mini stroke” not autism. You would have a concrete answer for his symptoms. Something that you could see and touch and get your hands around.

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This is obviously fairly self-explanatory. Since I am in Florida I put the Florida link first, however, the webpage with all of the state resources is also listed.

http://www.autism-pdd.net/resources-by-state.html

http://www.autism-pdd.net/links/florida.html

At our last support group meeting we had 2 moms fairly new to the world of Autism. Fortunately for these moms, they live here in Tampa where we have an active support group with very experienced parents. Our group is a resource to those in the community suffering autism spectrum disorders. They able to get specific and local advice with regard to local and statewide services. They were made aware of several web  links and addresses to make sure that they are able to maximize any benefits or state organizations available to them. They also were able to get specific tips regarding to their kids and daily life. However, Tampa is one community in a large world. I did find a website with a page titled autism action plan that I feel would be beneficial to anyone new to autism. Here is the link, I hope this is beneficial information to someone out there.

http://www.child-autism-parent-cafe.com/autism-action-plan.html

I have a ten year old autistic boy as a patient who occasionally tries to bite me. He used to try it much more when we first started treatment but lately not as much, in fact rarely. I always say that what the practitioner of Hemispheric Integration Therapy does often does not look like much but many times what we ask of the child can be a very powerful stimulus and quite demanding. It is why and when we are doing something that is the art. Pushing a child to”exercise the weak part of the brain  may require mommies help also as no one know that child like mommy( most moms are great.)  But often what the child needs can be difficult to do and very frustrating . Also, to once again make the working out analogy, it has to be hard enough but not too hard. But the sessions  can not be too easy either. I ran across the term alpha rage  on a blog relating to my experience with the biting. I hope this expands your awareness.

http://autismblog.us/beta-rage-and-alpha-rage-whats-that/

Children on the autism spectrum have a tendency to be much more sensitive with regard to interaction with their environment. A major part of this interaction is there diet and overall food intake. Here is a link to a blog post in which the author describes a multitude of detrimental effects to having sugar in your diet. One of the things that I like to do is take information not directly related to autism spectrum disorders and adapt them to these conditions and present them to you. At times, this may require you to take a little bit of a leap or move your thinking a step further. Usually, I try to make this a small step. Thus if sugar is detrimental to a normal and healthy body, we can expect it to be even more detrimental to a child on the autism spectrum. This of course is particularly relevant if the child has or is prone to yeast infections. Here is the link  to 76 ways sugar can ruin your health

http://www.freeads13.com/blogs/index.php/20090828-793/76-ways-sugar-can-ruin-your-health/

There is so much talk about vaccines in the autism community. Let’s go back to basics and take a look at what exactly is in the vaccines. Here is a link to some info from the CDC, a reliable source.  I am not saying that vaccines cause autism. As most of you know my concept is that the vaccines may be an epigenetic trigger especially in susceptible children who are predisposed. However, facts are facts, this is what is in some of the vaccines many of us are given or have taken. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf

In my office, we have several children that are in or approaching adolescence as well as some older adult children. Presently, our oldest adult child is thirty four. Once again I state that this subject of autism spectrum disorders is so broad and immense and touches us in so many different ways. It  always seems the younger children  get the attention and always seem to be the poster children. Often the adults tend to be forgotten. As one parent once told me ” Its hard to get treatment for adults. Many places won’t even accept them as patients.  I think this is because they are harder to manage and are not cute.”  We do accept adults with autism spectrum disorders. For this reason I found some basic information on a few web sites for those of you in this situation or approaching this situation to begin getting some help.  I will write more on this subject at a later date.

http://www.child-autism-parent-cafe.com/autism-and-adolescence.html

http://autism.about.com/od/transitioncollegejobs/a/steward.htm

I almost forgot to mention our last support group meeting in Tampa, www.hitautism.net. What a great meeting. We had a new member to the group who introduced herself and then said “ I don’t know what to do.”  She was referring to not knowing how to go about finding resources for assistance in treatment, schooling, socializing, etc. of her recently diagnosed ASD child.  Immediately the more experienced moms joined in and began helping her with tips, advise, links and resources. The new mom had a paper and a pen and began to write down all of her newly acquired information. There were some questions for me regarding biomedical treatments and Hemispheric Integration Therapy. You could see that she left the meeting uplifted and feeling better than when she came. It was beautiful and inspiring.  Many times we see parents who have lost hope, are confused or just plain overwhelmed.  And when we can share our experience and enthusiasm, we see the light and energy come back.  We also discussed a movie play date, a bowling play date, another planet bounce play date as well as getting a team together for the buddy baseball league. I thought, “This is what I wanted, not just a commisaration  or validation group but an organization that actually helps families and is uplifting”.  It is so fulfilling to experience what is happening in our meet-up group.