Rapid Brain Growth and Vitamin Deficiencies
One interesting study ( Rapid Infant Head Growth May Signal Autism
) that I read indicates that Aspies have abnormally rapid brain growth, I think when they are toddlers. I kind of hypothesize that vitamin therapy works for some of these kids because they probably didn't get enough nutrients to adequately support their unusually rapid brain growth. (The mainstay of the vitamin therapy are vitamins that are important to the brain.) Also, since food issues of some type are so common in Aspies, I think vitamin therapy may work for some of them because their food issues cause malnourishment. Both of my sons benefitted from vitamin therapy but the son with mild CF benefitted the most and the positive changes were pretty much permanent. For a number of years, when he got too weird on me, I would give him a B-complex vitamin. I haven't had to do that since he got diagnosed with CF and is getting treated for that and no longer suffers chronic low-grade malnourishment.
I also think that many of their behavioral issues may be an inadvertent consequence of the rapid brain growth stage they seem to go through. Since brain development is a combination of physical growth and environmental stimuli, I think that Aspies often do not get adequate environmental stimulation to properly develop during that stage and that may be largely responsible for their need for occupational therapy later. When my oldest was 7 years old, I saw a film about a study that was done. They had three groups of autistic kids. One group recieved no intervention. One group got a few hours of intervention per week. The last group got something like 40 hours of intervention per week for 2 years. Of this last group, the ones who were "high functioning" became completely normal-seeming kids. By the time they were teens, you couldn't tell them apart from their classmates.
Looking back on it, I did a lot of the same kinds of intensive intervention by taking my kids to up to three different play grounds per day for up to 3 or 4 hours per day and up to 5 days per week. I did that consistently for about 6 months, after which my youngest was no longer so clumsy as to be impaired by it. He is still on the clumsy side but it is within a "normal" range, not a "tripping-over-his-own-feet and can't get through a room without knocking something over" range. And I spent a year or more putting up with my oldest talking non-stop from the second he awoke until he fell asleep mid-sentence. That year is the earliest year he has verbal memories. All memories before that year are visual and sensory but without words.
Someone once asked about the film I saw when my son was 7 and I tried to find out information for them. This is what I came up with:
The technique may be called "Applied Behavior Analysis" and it sounds like what I have done with my kids:
A Mother's Story
Autism - more information
THIS sounds like what I saw a movie of:
ABOUT INTENSIVE BEHAVIORAL TREATMENT
Data-Based Research in Support of Intensive Early Intervention
Another Dissenting Voice WARNING: Jarring music starts when the page opens
ABA Resources for Recovery from Autism/PDD/Hyperlexia
It is highly likely that this is the film I saw, in case you want to order it or find it in a library and view it for yourself:
RECOMMENDED READING & VIDEOS
Scroll down to:
BEHAVIORAL TREATMENT OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN (video, 1988) shows children who received treatment under the supervision of O.Ivar Lovaas, of the Department of Psychology at UCLA. The video covers the evolution of his treatment approach, beginning with the research conducted between 1964 and 1969 that paved the way for the development of the "Young Autism Project" treatment model. That model provided the basis for the landmark "long term outcome" research that Lovaas first published in 1987 The footage shows a number of the children after treatment, and the remarkable progress they made. (See the study Lovaas, O.I. (1987) Behavioral treatment and normal educational and intellectual functioning in young autistic children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 3-9.)
45 minutes. Available from Focus International Inc., 1160 East Jericho Turnpike, Huntington, NY 11743.
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