Autism
In order to bring you the most current and up-to-date information, we are constantly researching and adding data regarding Autism. In the spirit of community, we also ask that as you find or know about relevant information or resources for Autism, you contribute your information at info@sharingwellnessinfo.com. The data on these conditions will grow because there is so much to be gathered and assimilated. Meanwhile, we are providing you a place to start your research and hope that you will feed back to us what else you find for addition here.
Being Informed
The more you know and understand about the cause of symptoms and what your body requires, the more you can help yourself or your child heal or recover. In the case of Autism, it is important to know what has caused the condition, how to cope with it and how to best assist the child or adult in healing and/or overcoming the external symptoms as well as the internal condition(s).
In the middle of the twentieth century (1943), Dr. Leo Kanner of John Hopkins Hospital studied a group of 11 children and introduced the term “early infantile autism” into our vocabulary. At about the same time, a German scientist, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that was subsequently named for him (Asperger Syndrome). Both disorders have been described and included in today's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) as two of five pervasive developmental disorders that are more often referred to as autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
For more information about Autism and available assistance regarding any spectrum of an Autism condition, you may wish to contact the following organizations:
The National Autistic Society at http://www.nas.org.uk or
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/autism1.htm
and the Autism Society of America can be reached at http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer
General Description of Autism
Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life. ASI is thought to be the result of a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain. Autism impacts the normal development of the brain in the areas of social interaction and communication skills. Children and adults with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, social interactions, and leisure or play activities. Many children and adults with ASDs have unusual ways of learning, paying attention, or reacting to different sensations. According to the CDC, ASDs begin during childhood and last throughout a person's life.
Autism is one of five disorders coming under the umbrella of Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), a category of neurological disorders characterized by "severe and pervasive impairment in several areas of development," including social interaction and communications skills (DSM-IV-TR). The five PDD disorders are Autistic Disorder, Asperger's Disorder, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder (CDD), Rett's Disorder, and PDD-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS).
All of these ASD disorders are characterized by varying degrees of impaired communication skills and social interactions as well as restricted, repetitive, and stereotypical behavior patterns. Some children can be reliably diagnosed by the age of 1 year or earlier; most can be reliably diagnosed by the age of 3 years.
Autism is the most common of the PDD disorders affecting from 1 in 500 in the 1990's that has now jumped to 1 in 166 children have an ASD according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June 2005. http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/asd_common.htm
In 2007, there are more than 1.5 million autistic children with a cost of care now at $90 billion/per year.
Johns Hopkins has some evidence (Nov. 2004) that indicates the brains of some people with autism show clear signs of inflammation suggesting that the disorder may be associated with the brain's immune system (http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2004/11_15a_04.html).
Possible causes noted in the August 2006 issue of Town & Country magazine in an article entitled Autism's Angels include: brain circuitry problems, genetics, environment and immunizations, immune system deficiencies, and pregnancy stresses.
Due to private citizens raising funding and also raising public awareness, there is now $102 million of the $29 billion NIH budget going to Autism research; millions for research and private schools being raised by citizens affected by autism in children or grandchildren. Lobbying is ongoing to establish a Combating Autism Act to authorize nearly $1 billion for research over the next five years.
Scientists continue to try to unravel the reasons for this autism epidemic. What they have been able to determine is that the most susceptible children seem to have a system that is slow in removing heavy metals like mercury and other toxins such as PCBX, dioxins, pesticides, plastics, and flame retardants that enter their bodies. With an impaired detoxification ability, the toxin levels accumulate and cause impaired functioning of the brain and other systems. In these children, the level of active versus inactive glutathione is too low.
From the website of SarahStup (www.sarahstup.com), a young autistic woman who must communicate through writing as she has no ability to speak, we find that persons with autism display unique personalities and combinations of characteristics. Some may exhibit only slight delays in language and show greater challenges with social interactions; some like Sarah, may not be able to speak but communicate very articulately by typing. Persons with autism may also:
- Insist on sameness; resist change
- Have difficulty expressing needs, and use gestures or point to things instead of using words
- Repeat words or phrases in place of normal, responsive language
- Laugh (and/or cry) for no apparent reason, and show distress for reasons not apparent to others
- Prefer to be alone; act aloof
- Throw tantrums
- Have difficulty socializing with others
- Not want to cuddle or be cuddled
- Have little or no eye contact
- Be unresponsive to normal teaching methods
- Sustain odd play
- Spin objects
- Attach obsessively to objects
- Be over-sensitive or under-sensitive to pain
- Have no real fears of danger
- Be physically over-active or under-active
- Have uneven gross/fine motor skills
- Be non-responsive to verbal cues; acting as if deaf, although hearing tests fall within normal range
Many physicians and researchers now believe that the array of potentially toxic chemicals that are in vaccines being given today may be responsible for causing autism, in at least some children. The kinds of potentially toxic chemicals include: mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum phosphate (toxic and carcinogenic), antibiotics, phenols (corrosive to skin and toxic), and live viruses and various other components. If you are on the fence about immunizations and trying to decide if they are something you or your family should have, there are tools and resources and physicians who can help. The Wellness Tools section of this site contains an article by Dr. Mercola regarding how to legally avoid immunizations.
Recent U.S. Government/Court Ruling: Poling Case
The U.S. government has concluded that childhood vaccines contributed to symptoms of autism in 9-year-old Hannah Poling. The unprecedented concession was in response to one of three test cases that allege the mercury-containing vaccine preservative thimerosal caused autism in children.
According to the case, the child was healthy and developing normally until her 18-month well-baby visit, where she received vaccinations for nine diseases, two of which contained thimerosal. Within 48 hours of the shots, Hannah become ill, refused to walk and could not sleep through the night. Within three months, she began showing signs of autism.
According to U.S. Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation, the shots "significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder" and resulted in a brain disorder "with features of autism spectrum disorder."
Although federal officials continue to say there is no link between autism and vaccines, this concession says otherwise.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has determined that Hannah’s family is entitled to compensation from a federal vaccine injury fund in an amount that is still being determined.
There are currently 4,900 autism cases pending in Federal "Vaccine Court."
Sources regarding this Poling Case:
- Mercola.com, March 22, 2008
- Organic Consumers Organization, February 25, 2008
On October 8, 2009, Dr. Mercola published an e-letter article stating that Hepatitis B vaccine triples the risk of autism in boys (his sources were Age of Autism, Sept. 17, 2009 and Annals of Epidemiology Sept. 2009: 19(9); 659). The study's authors used probability samples obtained from U.S. National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) 1997-2002 datasets. The new study used a different database than an earlier study by the same authors in which they found the same results, suggesting a validation of their findings.
Dr. Mercola goes on to say that routine use of the hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns began in 1992 in spite of the fact that it is very difficult to become infected with hepatitis B (blood or sexual contact of some sort is nearly always required for infection to occur). Those at highest risk are those who engage in sex with multiple partners or are IV drug users. Immunity from the vaccine lasts only up to 12 years in 60% of those who initially show an immune response from the vaccine. With hepatitis B a rare, mainly blood-transmitted disease, only 54 cases were reported to the CDC in the 0-1 age group in 1996. Yet 1,080 adverse reactions from hepatitis B vaccine in the 0-1 age group and 47 deaths were reported in 1996.
Dr. Mercola goes on to say that many conventional health experts are still saying no link has ever been found between vaccines and autism, but that the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) shot is the only vaccine that has been studied in association with autism to date while 48 doses of vaccines are administered to children before the age of six and 11 different types of vaccines are administered. There are no studies on most of those and there are yet to be any serious studies regarding the cumulative effect of several vaccines being administered simultaneously, or within a short time span. There are also no studies looking at the impact to neonates versus older children or adults.
Ongoing research shows that there is a definite correspondence between the administration of hepatitis B vaccine as a routine matter to all neonates and the increasing rate of autism or ASD. One recent study showed that children who received the Hepatitis B vaccine were 50% more likely to develop "central nervous system inflammatory demyelination" than those who did not receive the vaccine. The rate with GlaxoSmithKline's Engerix B brand of the vaccine increased the risk of demyelination by 74% and nearly tripled the risk of developing multiple sclerosis in genetically susceptible people. Engerix-B was licensed as a thimerosal-free vaccine in January 2007--however, the licensed formulation contains approximately 0.5 mg of aluminum per mL of vaccine and the aluminum may prove to be even worse than mercury. For much greater detail and more information about thimerosal and the problems inherent with it, go to www.mercola.com and do a search of "autism in infant boys."
On March 20, 2010, Dr. Mercola wrote about Dr. David Ayoub's research due to some personal encounters that heightened his interest in aluminum as a possible factor in the increase in autism. As he lectured around the country on thimerosal (mercury) and his discoveries and research in that area, parents were telling him that their children's heavy metal toxicity profiles showed high amounts of aluminum and they wanted to know what that meant. Then a well-respected nutritionist showed him toxicity profiles of middle school children who had ADHD and showed massive amounts of aluminum in their profiles. Dr. Ayoub discovered that as the amount of thimerosal being used as an additive to vaccines had been declining, the amount of aluminum being used as an additive had been increasing. Aluminum is added to the vaccine to boost the host's immune response to the antigen (this is called being used as an adjuvant). The antigen is what your body makes antibodies against (the virus being injected). By boosting your body's immune response, the vaccine manufacturer can use a smaller amount of antigen, making production less expensive.
Dr. Ayoub's research shows that how this boost in immune response with an adjuvant happens is still a mystery and is not a consistent finding. A couple of studies on the more recent HPV vaccine showed that the aluminum adjuvant had no effect at all on the immune response. Dr. Ayoub believes that no one knows with any degree of confidence that aluminum actually makes a more effective vaccine. Because of the weight of aluminum on the Periodic Table, it is called a "light metal" but it is a "natural" substance but one that has no biological role inside your body and it is a poison. Just some of the vaccines known to contain aluminum are Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, DTaP, Hib vaccine, pneumococcal vaccine, and Gardasil (HPV) vaccine. FDA's website has links to each package insert for all approved vaccines and you can read the contents on those package inserts. Dr. Mercola goes into a lot of detail about the way the aluminum gets into your body, the speed at which travels, how much is too much, problems with legal limits of aluminum in vaccines, and much more. Go to www.mercola.com and do a search on "aluminum toxicity+Ayoub" to get those details. He also provides an approach to treatment and prevention of aluminum toxicity.
Diagnosis of Autism
Parents usually are the first to notice unusual behaviors in these children. In some cases, the baby may have seemed different from birth-perhaps unresponsive to people, sound or noises, or focusing intently on a single object for long lengths of time. However, signs may begin to appear in a child who had appeared to be developing normally. If the toddler has been engaging and babbling and suddenly becomes withdrawn, silent, self-abusive, or doesn't respond to social overtures, something is wrong and it may be the onset of ASD. Parents are frequently the ones to assess the need for further investigation; diagnosis requires trained medical personnel.
One way to act early is to learn the signs which can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/actearly/.
Medical professionals recommend that diagnosis of autism or any ASD be made by a physician who specializes in ASD. Examples may include a pediatric neurologist, a developmental pediatrician, a child psychologist, or child psychiatrist. Exams will include a perinatal and developmental history as well as a physical and neurological examination.
Specialists may be used for speech. Language, communication, cognitive and adaptive behavior evaluations. Sensorimotor and occupational therapy evaluations are standard as are neuropsychological, behavioral, and academic assessments.
According to NIH's National Institute of Child and Health and Human Development, boys are 3 to 4 times more likely to be affected by autism than girls. Autism crosses all racial, ethnic, and social groups.
Symptoms of Autism
Symptoms are many and varied. They may include, but are not limited to: eyes that do not focus on moving objects; sideways looking so the eyes never appear to be looking at the person speaking to the child; lack of interest in food, wasting, appearance of inability to hear yet hearing tests fine, shunning touch, stemming activity, toe walking. Other symptoms may include self-abuse such as banging head against crib or wall or floor; sleep problems; ability to go for long periods of time without sleep.
From an article in the August 2006 edition of Town & Country Magazine entitled Autism's Angels by Diane Guernsey, the following signs and symptoms have been broken out by age. The author notes that parents with any concerns should speak with your practitioner about having your child screened as soon as possible because early intervention can make a profound difference in an autistic child's progress.
Infancy to age 2:
-Lack of babble, pointing or meaningful gestures by age 1
-Not speaking single words by 16 months
-Not combining two words by 2 years
-Losing language or social skills
-Avoids eye contact (or sideways looking)
-Doesn't know how to play with toys
-Obsessively lines up toys or other objects
-Overly attached to a particular toy or object
-Doesn't smile
-May appear to be hearing-impaired at times
Ages 2 to 5:
-Does not respond when name is called (hearing is normal when tested)
-Does not use an index finger to indicate objects (point)
-Avoids eye contact
-Dislikes being hugged, cuddled, or touched
-Does not speak or stops speaking
-Speaks in a monotone with little facial expression
-Speaks oddly or repetitively
-Endlessly echoes words or phrases or makes unusual sounds
-Physically hyperactive or underactive
flaps hands, flicks fingers, spins
-Shows lack of sensitivity or oversensitivity to sound, touch, or visual stimuli
-Unusual sleep patterns
-Eats a very limited range of foods
-Regresses from previously learned social or play behaviors
-Has severe mood swings or extreme tantrums
-Has poor physical coordination
-Stares fixedly at objects such as bright lights or door hinges
-Seems highly distracted or daydreamy
-Becomes overly attached to objects
-Obsessively opens and closes doors, or turns light on and off
-Engages in very little imitative play or make-believe
-Shows no interest in playing with peers
-Shows no separation anxiety
-Engages in self-injurious behaviors (head banging, hand biting)
-Shows no fear of danger or pain
More detailed lists are available from Autism Speaks, First Signs, and the National Institute of Mental Health and in The Autism Sourcebook by Karen Siff Exkorn. See the "references" section of this autism description for links.
Beneficial Modalities for Autism
According to organizations and associations formed to support parents of children with ASD as well as NIH's National Institute of Child and Health and Human Development, autism is treatable. The severity of the ASD may be ameliorated to varying degrees through a variety of treatments ranging from medicine to diet to chelation to behavior therapy. The CDC currently states that medicine can relieve symptoms but that structured teaching of skills, or behavioral intervention) is currently the most effective treatment. NIH sates that pre-school children who receive intensive, individualized, behavioral interventions show remarkable progress.
The Mayo Clinic also states that there are many forms of treatment and suggests that your doctor can help you choose the most appropriate form(s) of treatment for your child.
They list: behavioral and communication therapies, drug therapies, and complementary therapies that include art therapy, music therapy, special diets, vitamin and mineral supplements, and sensory integration - which focuses on reducing a child's hypersensitivity to touch or sound.
A general consensus is that children with ASD respond well to highly structured, specialized educational programs tailored to meet their needs. Successful programs, notes Mayo Cllinic, incorporate a team of specialists and a variety of interventions to improve social skills, communication, and behavior.
Some of the best known and most substantiated methods in use in 2006 include Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), chelation, the Denver Model (combines intensive teaching with relationship-building and social-communication skills in a family-based model), dietary interventions (gluten- and casein-free diets are common treatments), floor time (Stanley Greenspan's spontaneous and unstructured sessions of 20-30 minutes of playing on the floor with the child), integrated play therapy, picture exchange communication system (PECS) that uses pictures and ABA methods to help children learn, speech and language therapy, and verbal behavior using ABA methods to teach echoics, mands, tacts, and intraverbals.
Parents will need to contact their local school district and begin to initiate programs that are available for pre-school ASD children.
September 18, 2008: Another program that just came to our attention that may be helpful for autistic children is described below.
Music for Life Programs—A Pioneering Intervention for Those with Autism by Judith Youett
A remarkable new music program is benefiting children and adults with autism in Dutchess County, NY. Called the Music for Life Program, it gets participants to sing with seniors at Green Briar Adult Home in Millbrook, providing therapeutic as well as musical benefits for both participants and the residents of the home.
The program is run by Peter Muir Ph.D., Director of Center for Personal Development through Music in Verbank, a music center which pioneers this kind of therapeutic approach to music-making. The music outreaches are not like a regular concert performance, but are very informal, with participants and residents closely interacting through the music, often one-on-one. Because of this, the program, which has been running since January 2004, was at first controversial. “People kept telling me that it just wasn’t possible for those with autism to interact as closely as this kind of program requires,” says Dr. Muir. “However, what they hadn’t figured on was that music-making, particularly in the way we approach it, helps those with communication challenges feel safe and far more ready to communicate and socialize than in normal day-to-day situations.”
And, indeed, that is what happens. Donna Zuckermann, mother of program participant Dan, a teenager with Asperger’s Syndrome, believes that the program is the only time her son interacts with people he doesn’t know well. “It just seems so easy for him in that situation,” she says. Another participant is eight-year-old Niklas Watkins who suffers from Fragile X Syndrome, a leading cause of autism. His mother Amy is impressed with his response to the music outreaches: “they allow him to push past social and environmental issues of presenting in public,” she says.
The program is popular with the participants. “I learn lots of interesting songs,” says Michael Beck, 15, who also has Asperger’s, and his father Tom adds: “Michael has a wonderful time. He always looks forward to singing with the seniors.” And just as the participants like singing with the seniors, the seniors love the music and the interaction. “Our residents love the Music for Life Programs,” says Ellen Riccardi, activities director at Green Briar, “it helps stimulate them and encourages them to be active.” Course participant Dan Zuckermann agrees: “It makes them happier. Any time we go, they’re singing along and eager to get up and dance.”
The Music for Life approach is based on the work of John Diamond M.D. Dr. Diamond, a pioneer in the field of holistic medicine, is the world’s leading authority in using music and health modality. Program director Peter Muir has been associated with Dr. Diamond’s work for sixteen years. “It is unique,” he says. “Dr. Diamond has developed a whole new approach with music that is easily accessible for those with special needs and has tremendous benefits for all concerned. And what’s more it’s for everyone. You don’t need to be an experienced or skillful singer to take part. I feel privileged to be among the first implementing this new approach.”
One of the most exciting aspects of the Music for Life Program is that the benefits are not just musical. Indeed, the idea is that the ease of social contact facilitated by the music-making can be generalized into regular communication. This in turn can lead to a marked lessening of the autism. For instance, program participant Kevin Leonard has improved remarkably as a result of the music-making, according to his father Peter, a professor at Vassar College. “Since doing the Music for Life Program, he has become a happier person. He talks more--and eats less!”
The program is currently jointly funded by Autism Directory Services and the Life Energy Foundation. This funding has meant the financial burden to the participants has been minimized. CPD Music, which is running the program till mid-June, plans to restart it in the fall on an expanded basis.
For more information on Music for Life Programs, check out the website of CPD Music: www.cpdmusic.com.
or contact the program director, Dr. Peter Muir on (845) 677-5871.
Special Diets There are many sources available to tell you about how to remove gluten from the diet, but one place that keeps updating information is http://www.bodyecology.com and we recently ran across mention of The Encyclopedia of Dietary Interventions by Karyn Seroussi and Lisa S. Lewis, PhD on Donna's site. This book is especially written for the treatment of autism and related disorders -- to help parents deal with the brain-gut connection that affects so many with autism. The following link will take you to many other links regarding autism materials, research, and help: https://shop.bodyecology.com/prodinfo.asp?number=EDI.
Just received an email with information about Judy Converse MPH, RD, LD, a licensed, registered dietitian since 1989--and mother of an autistic son who had major leaky gut issues and is now thriving. Read about several of her cases at http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/12/tales-from-the-pharmafree-autism-crypt-autism-and-gi-solutions.html or see http://www.nutritioncare.net which is her website and where you can read about her book, Special-Needs Kids Eat Right. She also has recipes on the site for those in need of special diets. Judy's own story as she briefly states it follows.
Judy tweets: "I feel autism. I have felt it since 1996. I didn’t know it was autism. Technically, it wasn’t, because my baby was just a few weeks old. It was big scary problems with infant feeding, growth, digestion, and absorption. I knew those problems had the power to impair a baby’s brain, and injure one developmentally, for life. That’s because at the time, I had two degrees in nutrition, and was a registered dietitian. I’d done rotations in WIC clinics, seen lots of babies. When my newborn son had seizures, vomit, that crazy copious mucousy gold poop, growth regression, infection after infection in his first weeks, hours of non-stop, blue-faced, breathless screaming, tremors, syncope, and insomnia (i.e., awake for 22 hours at a time), my pediatricians told me this was: Normal. The problem wasn’t the baby. The problem was the mom!
Those may be the five most motivating words I ever heard. I set my jaw then and there. Either my university degrees were a big fat rip off, or I could actually go do something about this. That is what I decided by the time my son was four weeks old. So I did: A practice, books, testimonies before federal and state legislators, articles, blah blah blah. ...
An example case that Judy cites:
"Tweets are short, so let’s go back and examine what my “unrelated-to-development” training in nutrition did for those kids. Let’s do the 14 year old boy first, whom I met in fall of 2008. As usual, I was the last stop, and the mom had unearthed me somehow. He has classic autism. Her son had seen DAN! docs; he was using a near-perfect special diet plan, and had a hefty rotation of MD specialists, including GI. But he was dying anyway. He was 70 pounds, had gained no weight in years; was bedridden from weakness, and had lost self-care skills, like eating and using the bathroom. He couldn’t walk unassisted. He was facing surgery to insert a feeding tube into his stomach. Yes, he broke helmets with rage, which reliably occurred relative to bowel movements and bowel pain. He was relentlessly constipated and had needed in-patient clean outs to remove stool in the past.
After eight months of pharm-free nutrition focused care, he weighed 105 pounds, had grown several inches, and had restored normal growth status. He was back at school, was full of happy energy, was doing flips on his trampoline daily, and could talk and interact more. He was doing outings and normal things again, and even managed a trip to Disney World. He had daily bowel movements, much less pain, and was having fewer rages. He got his life back. I even weaned him off a psychiatric medication he’d been given to bracket the rage. I got the care covered on insurance. I don’t know what the doctors who had been treating him unsuccessfully for years thought about all this. None ever called me to ask what I did to turn this kid around. I just wish I had their salary and benefits. Can you imagine pulling, say 350K per year to not help these kids? Or as one mom I work with put it, be "the regular GI guy who never does anything"?"
References for Autism
Websites
Center for Disease Control and Prevention |
Genetics Home Reference |
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Autism ADD/ADHD Autoimmune Metabolic Protocol Soutions |
Beautiful Son, a documentary about healing autism |
Tinus Smits, M.D. |
Post Vaccination Syndrome--Tinus Smits MD |
AutismOne |
Autism Resources |
AutismSpeaks.org |
Cure Autism Now (CAN) |
First Signs Inc. |
New York Center for Autism |
Unlocking Autism |
SarahStup.com |
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-Autism |
Talk About Curing Autism |
Books
The Natural Medicine Guide to Autism. |
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| Find more books by this author | |
Let Me Hear Your Voice, A Family's Triumph Over Autism. |
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| Find more books by this author | |
Unraveling the Mystery of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder. |
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| Find more books by this author | |
Products
Gluten Solutions |
Carpet--wool, hemp, non-toxic |
Periodicals
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Organizations/Associations
American Occupational Therapy Association |
Autism Society of America |
Center for the Study of Autism |
Centers for Autism & Developmental Disabilities Epidemiology (CADDE) |
Johns Hopkins Medicine |
National Institutes of Health |
The National Autistic Society |
Mayo Clinic (on autism) |
National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities |
National Institute of Mental Health |
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke |
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development |
Nemours Foundation |
Defeat Autism Now! Autism Research Institute |
M.I.N.D. Institute |
NARSAD |
National Autism Association |
Autism National Committee |
The Arc |
Service
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Wellness Tools for Autism
September 2007 Vaccination Ad
September 2007 ad to get attention to the ongoing vaccination issues.
What My Family Should Know forms
SharingWellnessInfo: Ready for Health Emergencies cover and excerpt along with forms that complement the book.
Diagnosing Autism, Part 1
The Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD)
seeks to provide support and assistance with the goal
of optimizing the potential of people with autism, dual
sensory impairments, and related disabilities. Located at
six university sites throughout Florida, CARD develops
programs offering support and training for individuals,
families, professionals, and peers throughout Florida. This
fact sheet is made possible through the cooperative efforts of
Florida’s CARD Centers.
Diagnosing Autism, Part 2
The Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD)
seeks to provide support and assistance with the goal
of optimizing the potential of people with autism, dual
sensory impairments, and related disabilities. Located at
six university sites throughout Florida, CARD develops
programs offering support and training for individuals,
families, professionals, and peers throughout Florida. This
fact sheet is made possible through the cooperative efforts of
Florida’s CARD Centers.
Members only download
Treatment Considerations for Autistic Spectrum Disorder Patients at the Institute for Molecular Medicine
This item is from the site of Professor Garth L. Nicolson, www.immed.org. See the site for far more information. Professor Nicholson is with The Institute for Molecular Medicine.
Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) Pracititioners
This is a comprehensive list of DAN doctors available on Oct. 17, 2007. Add yourself to the SharingWellnessInfo practitioners' directory and/or send us an email to be added to this excel list.
Dr. Klinghardt's Extended Protocol for Treating Autism
Please see Dr. Klinghardt's own sites for the most current and up to date information. Those sites include www.neuraltherapy.com and www.klinghardt.org.
This is a slide presentation presented here in pdf format on Dr. Klinghardt's recommendations from 2006.
Jenny McCarthy YouTube on Autism by TACA
Talk About Curing Autism spokesperson, Jenny McCarthy speaks about the possibilities of curing autism from her own personal experience with her own child, Evan. She has also written a book, Louder Than Words, about her experience with Evan and finding treatment for him.
Members only download
Dr. Bryan Jepson, Part 1: Background on YouTube
This is a YouTube presentation in the form of an interview with Dr. Jepson about his book, entitled Autism IS Treatable. This one gives his background and how he concluded that his child is autistic.
Members only download
Dr. Bryan Jepson, Part 2
Dr. Jepson presents his belief and substantiation about autism being treatable. The name of his book is Changing the Course of Autism (thoughtfulhouse.org/supporting_research.htm). You will see the questions posed printed, then hear Dr. Jepson's answers.
He is especially engaged because of having an autistic child.
Members only download
How to Legally Avoid Immunizations by J. Mercola, MD
This article would be of interest to those who have decided they wish to opt out of immunizations for school or international travel. It is instructive as to one's rights and one's obligations with regard to opting out of immunizations required by states. No immunizations are required by federal law.
Dr. Mercola acknowledges that most of the information in the article was developed by Mrs. Grace Girdwain of Burbank, IL without compensation, over twelve years, to help her fellow Americans obtain their legal rights.
Music for Life Programs--A Pioneering Intervention for Those with Autism
This program puts children with autism together with seniors at Green Briar Adult Home in Millbrook in Dutchess County, NY to sing and music-making. The sessions are informal with participants and residents closely interacting through the music. The program has been ongoing since 2004.
This program is jointly funded by Autism Directory Services and the Life Energy Foundation. CPD Music runs the program. The program director is Dr. Peter Muir and the work is based on that of Dr. John Diamond.
Members only download
Top 10 Ways to THRiiVE--Autism and ASD
Dr. Klinghardt's recommendations for how to provide optimal surroundings and life situations for children with autism to heal, published by Dr. Mercola at www.mercola.com.
Members only download
Nutrition Science and Autism
Judy Converse, a licensed registered dietitian since 1989, and a mother of an autistic child, writes about the parallel between increasing numbers of vaccinations given at earlier and earlier ages and the increasing number of chronically ill children in the U.S.
Members only download
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder--Julie Matthews
This 27 page document by Julie Matthews of Healthful Living SF.com spells out much that is known about ADHD, how it manifests, potential treatments, nutritional assistance, and has much information that can be helpful to parents or those suffering with ADHD.
It defines 6 types of ADHD behaviors and discussed the diagnostic challenges accompanying ADHD. She discusses ritalin and the problems with the prescription and use of ritalin. She also covers the relationship of systemic imbalances and ADHD.
