Friday Oct 05, 2007
Is it really 2 months since I last posted to this blog: blame Facebook - too much fun to be had.
A couple of things I wanted share: I wanted to share a great article on this morning's BBC Radio4 "Today" programme; it's purportedly about the recent rise as autism in literature, but is also a good insight from a parent (who has written a book about his son) and Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen. Its starts about 8:30 into this link
Talking to a friend last night reminded me about an approach to helping the Asperger's kids that we did some work on a couple of years ago. The concept is "Social Stories". You can find various references (and books) about it - such as Polyxo.com (great name!) or The Gray Center , which is the resource we used. It's essentially about helping the autistic child to plan & rehearse for problematic social situations. What is particularly interesting is the very prescriptive approach to the structure of the stories. But it seems to work very well - I have met other parents who say it has been enormously helpful with some difficult situations.
Thursday Jul 26, 2007
One of the things that seems to be significant with all Autistic Spectrum Condition (Apsergers, austism, ADHD, dislexia... ) is diet. Before I go on - this is an area that is based on some inconclusive science -there has not enoguh large-scale research. Moreover, it is clear that a number of people see this as a bandwagon for commercial gain - try
this google search. There is some good stuff in here, and some useful books, but some phrases like "reverse autism"... "cure for autism" ... sound alarm bells to me.
Firstly - let's recognise this is a condtion, not a disease. Of coure, severe autism is very hard to deal with - but mostly this is about differences from what we accept as normal - so words like "cure" are deeply offensive. (As an aside, I reccommend the "Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical": which holds a satirical mirror up to "normals".)
A more significant caution, is that this is an area touched on by Dr. Andrew Wakefield (of MMR & Autism infamy). But that is a whole other issue.
Research into autism & diet seems seems to have a little more substance, and I'll describe our empirical experience. But you need to make up your own mind.
With those caveats said, it seems that diet can play a role in reducing some of the symptoms or side effects. Principally, it is to do with gluten and casein, proteins from cereals and dairy. As I said you can find a lot of the background on the web, but the theory seems to be that is that when these proteins are broken down into peptides in the gut of someone with ASC, these peptides can enter the blood, rather then being broken down into amino acids. They then act like morphine in the body; and can be detected as opoids in the urine ('Leaky Gut' and the Gluten- / Casein-Free Diet')
We first came across refrences to this Luke Jackson's excellent book "Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome" . Our minds were made up, when we showed Luke's list of physical symptoms to Calum; we knew about the bad skin and bad breath, but Calum said he felt most of them, such as gut pains.
This was shorty after Calum was diagnosed. Over the summer holiday, we started Calum on the Gluten & Casein free diet (it takes several weeks). When he returned to school in September, all his teachers were asking what we had done: he was calmer, more focussed, less voluble in class (and has continued to be so).
Let's be clear: Calum is still Calum,and still has Asperger's (and we love him for that). But some of the distracting effects had been reduced.
It really came home to me a few months later, when I was editing some video of Calum, taken shortly before we changed the diet. In the video, you could see his eyes had dilated pupils and were darting around at random: compared to how he is now, he was "high".
I'll say yet again - you need to form your own opinion. We know what we have seen, and we are not unique. I will reference some further research papers that I have been reading:
Monday Jun 18, 2007
A couple of comments that I received to my last post to this subject made me feel that I need to add some interesting and positive thoughts about ASC.
- This entry on wikipedia - People speculated to have been autistic is a good collection. OK - it's Wikipedia, and as they say themselves "This section does not cite its references or sources." (actually, it does), but it's a thought provoking (in a fun way) read.
- This led me to what looks like a great "Aspie" web site / forum at Wrong Planet- managed by an "aspie" with his own feisty views.
- Did you know that Simon Baron-Cohen (researcher) is first cousin to Sacha Baron-Cohen (comedian of Ali G & Borat fame)? Sounds like an internet myth - but I think the name kind of validates it. It also makes me wonder.....
Wednesday Jun 06, 2007
In a later post, I will explain why this area is so deeply important to me. What is Asperger's Syndrome? - From the National Autistic SocietyAsperger syndrome is a form of autism, a condition that affects the way a person communicates and relates to others. A number of traits of autism are common to Asperger syndrome including difficulty in social relationships, difficulty in communicating, limitations in imagination and creative play. For now, I just wanted to share a couple of important links with you.
Dr. Temple Grandin of Colorado State University is a noted writer and academic on the subjects of Autism and Asperger's Syndrome: she is probably the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. Articles such as An Inside View of Autism give a deep insight into what it feels like to be autistic. I commend her articles on the IRCA site.
This Times article on Mike Lesser is a good read, and refers to his website "Autism and Computing" which contains papers relating autism and computing: how computers can help autistics and vice versa. I love his quote:
"It can be argued that human knowledge and achievement is limited by our attention. Most of us do not have enough attention to deal with the demands of everyday life. That’s why 2,000 people die on the roads each year.
However, it seems that humanity has evolved a way of dealing with this problem of scarce attention by giving some people the propensity to focus their attention in a concentrated beam, an attention tunnel. This approach is often diagnosed as autism or Asperger’s syndrome. There is a minor but socially significant side-effect to this tight beam approach: it means that little attention is left for social rules, language, and how human beings relate."
And don't forget the resources on the National Autistic Society site.
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