New Autism Cure - breakthrough treatments and cures for autism

Autism is a puzzling disorder. Almost too appropriately, the universal logo and symbol of Autism is a puzzle. When you find out that your child has Autism, you’re going to be flooded with information on treatment methods from doctors and specialists. There are a variety of available treatments, but when you’re still suffering from the shock of the diagnosis, it’s difficult to tell the difference of each treatment. Here are a few of the most commonly used treatment options.

1. Behavioral Modification

Often in cases of Autism, children have difficulties with maintaining acceptable behavior. Hitting,  self injury, temper tantrums, and other like behaviors are common and damaging to the child and their families. Behavior modification treatment focuses on refining the behavior by initiating a reward system for acceptable behavior. Children are rewarded with hugs, high fives, toys, or something that they enjoy so that they associate good behavior with positive reinforcement.

2. Dietary Modification

It has been found that diets that are high in gluten or casein can be damaging to the autistic body. Eliminating these wheat and dairy items can be easier said than done because they’re often such a large part of a child’s diet. With substitution and new skills, parents can learn how to remove these foods from their child’s diet and allow their inflamed guts to heal.

3. Communication Treatment

Social interaction is another area in which children have a hard time performing in when they are diagnosed with ASD. Very often, Autistic children are unable to speak or communicate effectively and this makes it difficult to understand what it is that your child needs or wants. Communication treatment or Speech therapy explores other methods of communication such as non-verbal communication that can enable ASD children to communicate on a level that can be understood.

4. Chelation

Chelation is the process utilized to remove damaging heavy metals from the body. Mercury, iron, and other metals are often found in the Autistic body and can have negative effects on the brain making Autism symptoms even worse. Another source of damaging metals is Thiomersal, which is found in many childhood vaccines. Chelation Therapy includes the administering of chelating agents to remove heavy metals.

5. Treatment with Medication

When it comes to treating Autism with medication, since the ultimate cause isn’t known, you aren’t really treating the Autism so much as the symptoms. With Autism often comes depression, anxiety, and behavioral challenges in which doctors are quick to hand over a prescription for an anti-depressant.  While this can give symptoms a pacifier and can make living with Autism somewhat easier, there’s no one medication to treat autism.

An ideal treatment plan will focus on your individual child’s needs and interests. For example, if you have a child is is very interested in toys and enjoys playing with them, toy therapy may be a beneficial treatment for them. It’s perfectly okay to explore different methods of treatment to find which one works best. While there is no cure for Autism, there are a decent number of treatment options that can be very beneficial to treating the symptoms and body damage that Autism brings with it.

A few weeks ago, we took a look at Carly, a young girl who has Autism. She is non-verbal however she independently communicates via keyboard to her family, friends, Twitter Followers and Facebook Friends. She often fields questions from followers and she answers them herself. Once in a while her father has been known to send out a message just making a general request. Recently, for example, Carly’s father sent a message out kindly asking that people use Twitter to communicate with Carly as opposed ro Facebook. This was simply because Carly prefers Twitter over Facebook. Other than these once-in-a-while instances, Carly communicates everything herself with near no assistance.

As common as  individual communication methods have become, there are still some non-verbal people who are unable to successfully use a keyboard.  Hand-eye coordination is required to be able to utilize the keyboard method and many people lack this skill, especially if they have Autism. There are alternative methods of communication that have opened the doors of possibility for those who are non-verbal and lack the hand-eye coordination to successfully use a keyboard. One method in particular is known as Facilitated Communication or FC. In this method, specifically targeted to those who cannot type, there are two people involved; the communicator, (whom is often autistic, deaf, mute, etc) and the Facilitator. The facilitator is responsible for conveying the message of the communicator by assisting them in finding the right key, easing their hand to the desired letter, or pressing they key down that the communicator indicates.

Despite the numerous success stories that have come from this method, it is still under much controversy and has been for years.  In 1977, Rosemary Crossley claimed to have successfully used facilitated communication with a group of non verbal children. In 1989, the Facilitated Communication Institute was founded by Douglas Bilkin at Syracuse University in New York. The school was designed to educate families who were exploring such a method.

Facilitated Communication has had its advances over the years, but both medical and psychology experts claim that there is not enough hard evidence to prove the success of FC. In the 1990’s the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association issued statements that opposed the use and validity of FC. Their main criticism being that the facilitator had influence over what the communicator was attempting to say.

In 1997, Diane Twatchman-Cullen, the editor-in-chief of the Autism Spectrum Quarterly journal published “A Passion to Believe: Autism and the Facilitated Communication Phenomenon. ” In the book, Twatchman-Cullen takes a look at the conditions that led parents, teachers and others to depend on FC.

Also featured in the book is an examination of the study that Twatchman-Cullen conducted in 1990 of three adults with non-verbal, non functioning Autism.  All three people spent their educational and informative years in institutions so they had no real external exposure. With a facilitator, however, all three were able to communicate ideas about the outside world.

“I don’t think that the vast majority of people were deliberately typing their own messages,” she said. “I really don’t believe that, but I do believe there was unconscious facilitation.”

Though rare, there have also been a few cases in which individuals have graduated from using FC to independent communication.

It is estimated that there are about 700 - 1,000 people worldwide who communicate using FC.