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Tero Toivanen

Autism Therapy: pivotal response training | Healing Thresholds - 0 views

  • Future research may allow therapists to know in advance which type of applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy) is most likely to work for any given child with autism.
  • This study of six children was designed to see if it is possible to predict which type of ABA therapy will work for which child with autism.
  • The authors were able to predict which children would respond to pivotal response training, but not which ones would respond to discrete trial training. The authors note that all children were first exposed to pivotal response training and then to discrete trial training and this may have influenced the results. Children who liked toys were more likely to respond to pivotal response training than children who did not like toys.
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  • This study looked at whether or not a type of applied behavior analysis (pivotal response training) could be used to teach play skills to children with autism.
  • . Both children in the study improved their social skills during recess time.
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    Type of training in which certain behaviors are assumed to be crucial for other behaviors. These pivotal behaviors are then targeted so that the behaviors that depend upon them can change as well.
Child Therapy

Child Therapy Works - 2 views

I have the chance of asking professional help for my kid who has been depressed for the past few weeks. We did not know what the reason was and so we asked help from NLP4Kids a reputed therapy orga...

Therapy for children

started by Child Therapy on 23 Feb 12 no follow-up yet
Tero Toivanen

NeuroLogica Blog » Hyperbaric Oxygen for Autism - 0 views

  • This includes autism - there are no compelling studies showing any benefit from hyperbaric oxygen therapy in autism. The few studies that do exist are uncontrolled, which means they are mostly worthless.
  • Some have pointed out that the study leader, Daniel Rossignol, has a potential conflict of interest in that he offers hyperbaric oxygen therapy in his practice.
  • Everyone agrees, even Rossignol, that this study will not end the controversy over hyperbaric oxygen in autism. It needs to be replicated.
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  • Another weakness of the study is that it was short term, only four weeks. It therefore did not test if the effect of hyperbaric treatment survives much beyond the treatment itself. Even if the effect in this study is real, it may represent only a temporary symptomatic benefit - not altering the course of autism itself. Therefore longer followup studies are needed as well.
  • It is not impossible that hyperbaric oxygen may have some benefit in some children with autism.
  • The biggest risk of the treatment now is that it is expensive - costing 150-900 dollars per treatment or 14-17 thousand dollars for a chamber.
  • But one thing is clear - any future studies should be very tightly controlled, or they will be counterproductive.
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    Critics about the new study about the effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in autism.
Tero Toivanen

News from the Associated Press - newsjournalonline.com - 0 views

  • Leo Lytel was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. But by age 9 he had overcome the disorder. His progress is part of a growing body of research that suggests at least 10 percent of children with autism can "recover" from it - most of them after undergoing years of intensive behavioral therapy.
  • She presented research this week at an autism conference in Chicago that included 20 children who, according to rigorous analysis, got a correct diagnosis but years later were no longer considered autistic.
  • Skeptics question the phenomenon, but University of Connecticut psychology professor Deborah Fein is among those convinced it's real.
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  • Previous studies have suggested between 3 percent and 25 percent of autistic kids recover. Fein says her studies have shown the range is 10 percent to 20 percent.
  • But even after lots of therapy - often carefully designed educational and social activities with rewards - most autistic children remain autistic. Recovery is "not a realistic expectation for the majority of kids," but parents should know it can happen, Fein said.
  • The children in Fein's study, which is still ongoing, were diagnosed by an autism specialist before age 5 but no longer meet diagnostic criteria for autism. The initial diagnoses were verified through early medical records.
  • The researchers are also doing imaging tests to see if the recovered kids' brains look more like those of autistic or nonautistic children.
  • Imaging scans also are being done to examine brain function in formerly autistic kids.
  • Results from those tests are still being analyzed.
  • Most of the formerly autistic kids got long-term behavior treatment soon after diagnosis, in some cases for 30 or 40 hours weekly.
  • Many also have above-average IQs and had been diagnosed with relatively mild cases of autism. At age 2, many were within the normal range for motor development, able to walk, climb and hold a pencil.
  • Significant improvement suggesting recovery was evident by around age 7 in most cases, Fein said.
  • None of the children has shown any sign of relapse. But nearly three-fourths of the formerly autistic kids have had other disorders, including attention-deficit problems, tics and phobias; eight still are affected.
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    Leo Lytel was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. But by age 9 he had overcome the disorder. His progress is part of a growing body of research that suggests at least 10 percent of children with autism can "recover" from it - most of them after undergoing years of intensive behavioral therapy.
Tero Toivanen

Oklahoma parents of autistic children turning to oxygen therapy - People CD - Remodelin... - 0 views

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    Oklahoma parents of autistic children turning to oxygen therapy General discussion
Tero Toivanen

Autism Therapies and Outcomes -- Outcomes and Autism - 0 views

  • The view of the behavior analyst should be that the subject is always right. If the child isn't learning, you need to know why. It's not that the child is defective, it's that the approach isn't working. The therapist needs to ask, "what do I need to do to teach this child?" ...Being autistic shouldn't stop children from learning. It has nothing to do with their ability to learn. They just don't learn typically. That's the problem we have. You can't use "autism" as way to explain behaviors: it is the behaviors. Why do the behaviors occur? We don't always know. But that doesn't mean we can't teach children with autism language and social interaction. They don't need us to have fun -- they can create their own reinforcers. The therapist has to find a reinforcer that's better than what the child can do on his own. That "better thing" should always have a social component.
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    It's important to remember that, when it comes to therapy for children with autism, failure to progress is never the fault of the child. If you hear from a therapist that your child doesn't progress because of his behaviors, attention span, intelligence level, or stubbornness, it's time to question the therapist's technique.
Tero Toivanen

Emotional, motivational and interpersonal responsiveness of children with autism in imp... - 0 views

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    The results of this exploratory study found significant evidence supporting the value of music therapy in promoting social, emotional and motivational development in children with autism.
Tero Toivanen

Auditory Integration Training and Facilitated Communication for Autism -- Committee on ... - 0 views

  • For example, Smith et al16 studied 10 individuals with autism specifically to investigate the effects of facilitator influence and level of assistance on the results of FC. Each subject had six sessions, two with no help, two with partial assistance, and two with full assistance. Results showed that there were no cases of correct responses from the subject unless the facilitator knew the correct response. In addition, numerous responses were typed by the subjects to stimuli that were shown only to the facilitator, and not the subject. Similar results have been found by Regal et al17 and Eberlin et al.1
  • One complication of the use of FC has been the allegation of abuse, particularly sexual abuse, that has been obtained from individuals through the use of FC against third persons. This has generated adverse publicity and caused severely negative consequences for families who may be unsure of the validity of the allegations. Because of legal mandates regarding reports of child abuse, this becomes a critical issue for teachers and pediatricians alike, who may find the credibility of the report highly questionable but are obligated to fulfill their legal responsibilities. Margolin20 notes that although more than 50 such allegations have resulted in legal proceedings, most have terminated before trial. The ethical dilemmas posed by FC for practitioners have been reviewed by Jacobson et al.8
  • It is important for the pediatrician to obtain current data on both AIT and FC as they become available. Until further information is available, the use of these treatments does not appear warranted at this time, except within research protocols.
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    This statement reviews the basis for two new therapies for autism---auditory integration training and facilitative communication. Both therapies seek to improve communication skills. Currently available information does not support the claims of proponents that these treatments are efficacious. Their use does not appear warranted at this time, except within research protocols.
Tero Toivanen

facilitated communication - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com - 0 views

  • The American Psychological Association has issued a position paper on FC, stating that "Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that facilitated communication is not a scientifically valid technique for individuals with autism or mental retardation" and describing FC as "a controversial and unproved communicative procedure with no scientifically demonstrated support for its efficacy."
  • Frontline Program on facilitated communication:
    • Tero Toivanen
       
      Here is the video about Facilitated Communication (FC). If you have something to do with FC, I think you should watch it.
  • Parents are grateful to discover that their child is not hopelessly retarded but is either normal or above normal in intelligence. FC allows their children to demonstrate their intelligence; it provides them with a vehicle heretofore denied them.
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  • Facilitated Communication therapy began in Australia with Rosemary Crossley. The center for FC in the United States is Syracuse University, which houses the Facilitated Communication Institute (FCI) in their School of Education.
  • A very damaging, detailed criticism was presented on PBS's "Frontline", October 19, 1993. The program was repeated December 17, 1996, and added that since the first showing, Syracuse University has claimed to have done three studies which verify the reality and effectiveness of FC, while thirty other studies done elsewhere have concluded just the opposite.
  • Furthermore, FC clients routinely use a flat board or keyboard, over which the facilitator holds their pointing finger. Even the most expert typist could not routinely hit correct letters without some reference as a starting point.
  • Facilitators routinely look at the keyboard; clients do not. The messages' basic coherence indicates that they most probably are produced by someone who is looking at the keyboard.
  • Anyone familiar with Helen Keller, Stephen Hawking or Christy Brown knows that blindness, deafness, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or physical or neurological disorders, do not necessarily affect the intellect. There is no necessary connection between a physical handicap and a mental handicap. We also know that such people often require an assistant to facilitate their communication. But what facilitators do to help the likes of a Hawking or a Brown is a far cry from what those in the facilitated communication business are doing.
  • But the vast majority of FC clients apparently are mentally retarded or autistic. Their facilitators appear to be reporting their own thoughts, not their patient's thoughts. Interestingly, the facilitators are genuinely shocked when they discover that they are not really communicating their patient's thoughts. Their reaction is similar to that of dowsers and others with "special powers" who, when tested under controlled conditions, find they don't have any special powers at all.
  • It is interesting that the parents and other loved ones who have been bonding with the patient for years are unable to be facilitators with their own children.
  • And when the kind strangers and their patients are put to the test, they generally fail. We are told that is because the conditions made them nervous. These ad hoc excuses sound familiar; they sound like the complaints of parapsychologists.
  • Skeptics think the evidence is in and FC is a delusion for the most part. It is also a dangerous delusion. Critics have noted a similarity between FC therapy and repressed memory therapy: patients are accusing their parents and others of having sexually abused them. Facilitators are taught that something like 13% of their clients have been sexually abused. This information may unconsciously influence their work.
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    You find here a very about Important Video about Facilitated Communication (FC). The American Psychological Association has issued a position paper on FC, stating that "Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that facilitated communication is not a scientifically valid technique for individuals with autism or mental retardation" and describing FC as "a controversial and unproved communicative procedure with no scientifically demonstrated support for its efficacy."
Tero Toivanen

YouTube - Ethan's Recovery from Autism - 0 views

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    Boy's recovery from autism with combination of Antiviral - Antifungal Therapy.
Tero Toivanen

New Theory Of Autism Suggests Symptoms Or Disorder May Be Reversible - 0 views

  • the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.
  • autism is a developmental disorder caused by impaired regulation of the locus coeruleus, a bundle of neurons in the brain stem that processes sensory signals from all areas of the body.
  • The new theory stems from decades of anecdotal observations that some autistic children seem to improve when they have a fever, only to regress when the fever ebbs.
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  • This study documented that autistic children experience behavior changes during fever.
  • Einstein researchers contend that scientific evidence directly points to the locus coeruleus–noradrenergic (LC-NA) system as being involved in autism. "The LC-NA system is the only brain system involved both in producing fever and controlling behavior," says co-author Dominick P. Purpura, M.D., dean emeritus and distinguished professor of neuroscience at Einstein.
  • The locus coeruleus has widespread connections to brain regions that process sensory information. It secretes most of the brain's noradrenaline, a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in arousal mechanisms, such as the "fight or flight" response. It is also involved in a variety of complex behaviors, such as attentional focusing (the ability to concentrate attention on environmental cues relevant to the task in hand, or to switch attention from one task to another). Poor attentional focusing is a defining characteristic of autism.
  • "What is unique about the locus coeruleus is that it activates almost all higher-order brain centers that are involved in complex cognitive tasks," says Dr. Mehler.
  • autism, the LC-NA system is dysregulated by the interplay of environment, genetic, and epigenetic factors
  • They believe that stress plays a central role in dysregulation of the LC-NA system, especially in the latter stages of prenatal development when the fetal brain is particularly vulnerable.
  • a higher incidence of autism among children whose mothers had been exposed to hurricanes and tropical storms during pregnancy.
  • autistic children, fever stimulates the LC-NA system, temporarily restoring its normal regulatory function. "This could not happen if autism was caused by a lesion or some structural abnormality of the brain," says Dr. Purpura.
  • future of autism treatment probably lies in drugs that selectively target certain types of noradrenergic brain receptors or, more likely, in epigenetic therapies targeting genes of the LC-NA system.
  • If the locus coeruleus is impaired in autism, it is probably because tens or hundreds, maybe even thousands, of genes are dysregulated in subtle and complex ways," says Dr. Mehler. "The only way you can reverse this process is with epigenetic therapies, which, we are beginning to learn, have the ability to coordinate very large integrated gene networks."
  • "You can't take a complex neuropsychiatric disease that has escaped our understanding for 50 years and in one fell swoop have a therapy that is going to reverse it — that's folly. On the other hand, we now have clues to the neurobiology, the genetics, and the epigenetics of autism. To move forward, we need to invest more money in basic science to look at the genome and the epigenome in a more focused way."
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    the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.
Tero Toivanen

A Controversial Autism Therapy Unravels a Family - TIME Healthland - 0 views

  • "With a facilitator guiding her arm, the child who had never been taught to read was suddenly writing poetry and English essays, taking history exams and doing algebra. The middle-schooler who couldn't put on her coat without help was typing about her plans to become a college professor,"
  • But the technique, in which the aide's hand is supposedly guided by the child to type what she wants to say, has been proved ineffective. It has been shown to rely on the aide's projections rather than to reflect the child's thoughts. Although some autistic children can learn to communicate genuinely via a keyboard with only initial guidance, facilitated communication, in which an aide always does the typing has repeatedly failed to demonstrate that the words are written or thought by the child. For example, when the facilitator is not allowed to hear the questions being asked of the child, the resulting answers are wrong or nonsensical.
  • When the Wendrow's daughter's aide typed allegations of sexual abuse against the girl's father and brother — and claimed that the child's mother had been ignoring her complaints — a prosecution of the family was set into motion that became nearly unstoppable. The aide refused to believe she was not typing her own ideas, even though the child was clearly not capable of the complex language being attributed to her. Once prosecutors and the aide became convinced of the truth of the allegations, even overwhelming evidence of their falsehood was ignored.
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    Facilitated Communication (FC) is dangerous!
Tero Toivanen

New Year, New Decade Resolutions for the Autism Community - 0 views

  • parents leaving their offices with an autism spectrum diagnosis for their child will have a clear plan of action for getting their child the help they need, where and when they need it.
  • Researchers will develop a better understanding of autistic subgroups, so that it will become possible to recommend appropriate treatments and therapies based on individuals' symptoms, challenges and strengths.
  • Less time, money, energy and angst will go into confrontation, and more time, money, energy and love will go into autism-related volunteerism, mentoring, program development, and other positive activities.
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    Less time, money, energy and angst will go into confrontation, and more time, money, energy and love will go into autism-related volunteerism, mentoring, program development, and other positive activities.
Tero Toivanen

Autism disorders might be reversible. | - I Teach Autism.com - - 0 views

  • Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have proposed a sweeping new theory of autism that suggests that the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.
  • The central tenet of the theory, published in the March issue of Brain Research Reviews, is that autism is a developmental disorder caused by impaired regulation of the locus coeruleus, a bundle of neurons in the brain stem that processes sensory signals from all areas of the body.
  • The new theory stems from decades of anecdotal observations that some autistic children seem to improve when they have a fever, only to regress when the fever ebbs.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Einstein researchers contend that scientific evidence directly points to the locus coeruleus–noradrenergic (LC-NA) system as being involved in autism. “The LC-NA system is the only brain system involved both in producing fever and controlling behavior,” says co-author Dominick P. Purpura, M.D., dean emeritus and distinguished professor of neuroscience at Einstein.
  • The locus coeruleus has widespread connections to brain regions that process sensory information.
  • It is also involved in a variety of complex behaviors, such as attentional focusing (the ability to concentrate attention on environmental cues relevant to the task in hand, or to switch attention from one task to another).
  • “What is unique about the locus coeruleus is that it activates almost all higher-order brain centers that are involved in complex cognitive tasks,” says Dr. Mehler.
  • Drs. Purpura and Mehler hypothesize that in autism, the LC-NA system is dysregulated by the interplay of environment, genetic, and epigenetic factors (chemical substances both within as well as outside the genome that regulate the expression of genes). They believe that stress plays a central role in dysregulation of the LC-NA system, especially in the latter stages of prenatal development when the fetal brain is particularly vulnerable.
  • Drs. Purpura and Mehler believe that, in autistic children, fever stimulates the LC-NA system, temporarily restoring its normal regulatory function.
  • the future of autism treatment probably lies in drugs that selectively target certain types of noradrenergic brain receptors or, more likely, in epigenetic therapies targeting genes of the LC-NA system.
  • “You can’t take a complex neuropsychiatric disease that has escaped our understanding for 50 years and in one fell swoop have a therapy that is going to reverse it — that’s folly. On the other hand, we now have clues to the neurobiology, the genetics, and the epigenetics of autism. To move forward, we need to invest more money in basic science to look at the genome and the epigenome in a more focused way.”
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    Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have proposed a sweeping new theory of autism that suggests that the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.
Tero Toivanen

Autism Street » Mild HBOT For Autism - A Brief Skeptical Guide - 0 views

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    Autism street: For readers who may be interested in a skeptical perspective with regards to "mild" hyperbaric oxygen therapy for autism, I've assembled a short list of links.
Tero Toivanen

Applied Behavioral Analysis - Understanding ABA Therapy - 1 views

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    Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) techniques have been proven in many studies as the leading proven treatment and method of choice on treating individuals with autism spectrum disorder at any level. ABA approaches such as discrete trial training (DTT), Pivotal Response Training (PRT), Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS)
Graeme Wadlow

Interventions to Facilitate Auditory, Visual, and Motor Integration in Autism: A Review... - 0 views

Tero Toivanen

Autism finding could lead to simple urine test for the condition - 0 views

  • The researchers behind the study, from Imperial College London and the University of South Australia, suggest that their findings could ultimately lead to a simple urine test to determine whether or not a young child has autism.
  • People with autism are also known to suffer from gastrointestinal disorders and they have a different makeup of bacteria in their guts from non-autistic people.
  • Today's research shows that it is possible to distinguish between autistic and non-autistic children by looking at the by-products of gut bacteria and the body's metabolic processes in the children's urine. The exact biological significance of gastrointestinal disorders in the development of autism is unknown.
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  • The distinctive urinary metabolic fingerprint for autism identified in today's study could form the basis of a non-invasive test that might help diagnose autism earlier. This would enable autistic children to receive assistance, such as advanced behavioural therapy, earlier in their development than is currently possible.
  • The researchers suggest that their new understanding of the makeup of bacteria in autistic children's guts could also help scientists to develop treatments to tackle autistic people's gastrointestinal problems.
  • Professor Jeremy Nicholson, the corresponding author of the study, who is the Head of the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College London, said: "Autism is a condition that affects a person's social skills, so at first it might seem strange that there's a relationship between autism and what's happening in someone's gut. However, your metabolism and the makeup of your gut bacteria reflect all sorts of things, including your lifestyle and your genes. Autism affects many different parts of a person's system and our study shows that you can see how it disrupts their system by looking at their metabolism and their gut bacteria.
  • We hope our findings might be the first step towards creating a simple urine test to diagnose autism at a really young age
  • A urine test might enable professionals to quickly identify children with autism and help them early on," he added.
  • The researchers reached their conclusions by using H NMR Spectroscopy to analyse the urine of three groups of children aged between 3 and 9: 39 children who had previously been diagnosed with autism, 28 non-autistic siblings of children with autism, and 34 children who did not have autism who did not have an autistic sibling. They found that each of the three groups had a distinct chemical fingerprint. Non-autistic children with autistic siblings had a different chemical fingerprint than those without any autistic siblings, and autistic children had a different chemical fingerprint than the other two groups.
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    This is interesting finding. Hope it will give results!
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