Help With Autism

We know there’s a host of things you can’t eat or drink or do when you’re pregnant – and for good reason. One of the most important things to avoid, though, is anything that could contain mercury. Which often times means raw fish or shellfish. Women who are exposed to mercury in pregnancy have given birth to children with serious birth defects due to mercury poisoning.

In utero mercury exposure can lead to Minamata disease, which has symptoms such as ataxia, numbness in the hands and feet, general muscle weakness, a narrowed field of vision, and damage to the hearing and speech. In extreme cases, the disease can cause insanity, paralysis, coma and death after just a few weeks of the onset of symptoms.

Art and music have been effective components of autism therapy for many years.  Both assist people with autistic spectrum disorders with expression of their feelings, allowing them to communicate fluently despite possible verbal challenges in nonthreatening media.  Art therapy is fun, creative, and encourages development of fine motor skills.  For example, working with clay helps strengthen the muscles that are used in handwriting.

Like art, music is a nonthreatening, nonverbal medium that is effective in the development of speech.  The range of speech capabilities among autistic children is large, ranging from no speech at all to some speech, often monotonic and characterized by a lack of expression.  A great deal of autism research has concluded that autistic children are unusually sensitive to music.  Some have perfect pitch and can play musical instruments exceptionally well, but music in a therapeutic setting is also adaptable to nonmusical goals.  Since autistic children sometimes sing rather than speaking, speech can be improved through vocal music activities.  Songs with simple words, phrases, and even nonsense syllables can assist the autistic child’s language skills.  Word phrases and songs presented with visual and tactile clues can expedite this process, while other children respond meaningfully when both questions and answers are framed as songs.  Singing can also reduce the monotonic cadence that characterizes the speech of some autistic children.  Since singing phrases a way to put words together and remember them, it can be a vital building block to communication for children with autistic spectrum disorders.

As parents know, one of the biggest challenges with an autistic child is getting them to sleep. PCM-Rx, an autism treatment bearing similarities to PCA-Rx, is being recommended as a good means to help your child do just that, and can also be used to simply help them calm down.PCM-Rx is a powerful detoxifier and helps the body get rid of toxins such as pesticides and heavy metals. It’s administered in a 30-ml oral spray bottle.

According to http://www.helpyourautisticchild.com, PCM-Rx contains the same detoxification qualities as PCA-Rx and is basically identical to it, but includes the additions of lemon balm, melatonin, SAMe (this is how it was spelled on the site) and withonia somnifera. The site describes the effects of the treatment as “calming,” and it’s been well-received among its readers.

Probiotics are a dietary supplement that contains potentially beneficial bacteria or yeast.  They are composed of live organic matter that is beneficial for the host in a variety of ways.  What some people don’t realize is that there are twice as many bacteria cells in our body as our own human cells. These bacteria are responsible for regulating various bodily functions such as our digestive system.  There are harmful bacteria that are in this world that can cause illness and death, like the 2 million people who die each year of tuberculosis, but helpful bacteria are completely necessary for our bodies to thrive.

Autism is not a condition that could be relegated to one symptom alone, but rather it is the conglomeration of a variety of symptoms.  There are certain characteristics of autism that are prevalent for most autistic case, however, such as social impairment.  Those with autism are also likely to have specialized interest and focus on those primarily with a tendency toward repetitive actions.

 There are many treatments for autism available for those with a loved one with the condition.  The support that is available for families has gone up since the recognition of autism has increased this past decade.

The VH1 Classic music television channel has developed a campaign called Rock Autism, intending to educate parents and build awareness about the disorder.  Musicians such as Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS, Ronnie James Dio of Dio, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Rob Halford of Judas Priest, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil of Motley Crue, Roger Daltrey of the Who, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin appear in a public service announcement that runs frequently on the channel and on its parent channel, VH1.  The intention of the campaign is to help educate parents, providing them a forum while building autism awareness on the campaign website and their Facebook page.  Another primary focus of VH1 Classic Rock Autism is raising funds for autism research, advocacy, and support organizations.  VH1 Classic Rock Autism has consciously targeted the age-30-and-over demographic most strongly because this population is at the primary age to start families, and with autism rates still rising, education is the best defense for potential parents of children with autistic spectrum disorders.

VH1 Classic Rock Autism’s webpage lists many other resource groups and links to autism information and news about the disease and the campaign’s efforts as well as spotlighting the efforts of other cable channels to educate the public about this disorder.  MTV’s popular documentary program “True Life” has an episode entitled “I Have Autism”, and children’s channel Nickelodeon has broadcast a special Nick News report called “Private Worlds:  Kids and Autism”.   Clips for both of these shows can be accessed from the MTV and Nickelodeon websites and are also linked through the VH1 Classic Rock webpage.

Rett syndrome symptoms include cognitive impairment and difficulty with socialization, which generally improves by the time the child enters school.  The rate of head growth is slower in those who have Rett’s and may include microcephaly (a very small head) as well as small hands and feet with repetitive hand movements such as wringing.  Girls with Rett syndrome are prone to stomach problems and up to 80% also have seizures.  About half of females are not ambulatory.  Scoliosis, failure to grow, constipation, and lack of verbal skills are also very common manifestations of Rett’s syndrome, which occurs much more commonly in girls.

Rett syndrome is one of the disorders commonly identified as being under the umbrella of autism, along with Asperger’s syndrome, sensory integration disorder, and several others. 
Autism treatments are always changing as autism awareness becomes more prevalent.

Autism information begins with the first published academic paper identifying autistic children.  The paper was published in 1943 by Leo Kanner and was titled “Autistic Disturbance of Affective Contact”.  Before Kanner’s observations were recorded, such children were being classified as emotionally disturbed or mentally retarded.  Kanner’s work pointed out that these children often demonstrated potential that did not allow them to fit comfortably into either prior diagnosis.  His response was to invent a new diagnostic category called Early Infantile Autism, sometimes called Kanner’s Syndrome.  Hans Asperger essentially made the same discoveries at the same time independently of Kanner in his academic paper “Autistic Psychopathy in Childhood”.  The difference in the subjects being studied by these two pioneers was that Asperger’s subjects had speech, so Asperger’s Syndrome is often still used today to classify autistic people who have speech.

The word “autism” already had a meaning before Kanner coined it as a diagnosis:  “escape from reality”.  It is speculated that Kanner appropriated this word because he believed that the classified children were either actually trying to escape from reality or gave that impression.  Other terms have applied to what we now call autism:  childhood schizophrenia, infantile autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, and Kanner’s Syndrome, and other autism spectrum disorders have also been identified, such as Sensory Integration Disorder.

Middle Eastern families, sophisticated genetic analysis and groundbreaking neuroscience have implicated a half-dozen new genes in autism research. More importantly, it strongly supports the emerging idea that autism stems from disruptions in the brain’s ability to form new connections in response to experience consistent with autism’s onset during the first year of life, when many of these connections are normally made.

Autism genes have been difficult to identify because the disorder is complex, with a variety of causes stemming from many possible genes or combinations of genes. In addition, since people with autism tend not to have children, most of the genes identified thus far aren’t inherited from a parent, but instead are mutated during embryonic development, making them hard to track through traditional linkage studies in families.

Just over 6 percent of the 88 families showed rare, inherited deletions within DNA regions linked to autism. These affected DNA regions varied among families, further indication of autism’s large variety of genetic causes. In all, the technique identified five chromosome deletions affecting at least six identifiable genes.

PENNSYLVANIA – Parents of autistic children would be able to pay for autism therapy and related services with private health insurance starting next year, under legislation that strikes a compromise between the insurance industry and advocates for the disabled.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday unanimously passed the measure, which also would give the state Insurance Department power to approve the proposed merger of Pennsylvania’s two largest insurance companies. The Senate’s Republican leader said Wednesday he expects that chamber to send the bill to Gov. Ed Rendell, who said he would sign it, before the Legislature’s two-month summer break.