In Pediatrics Dr. Timothy Buie and colleagues published a paper providing evidence-based recommendations for pediatricians who evaluate and treat gastrointestinal problems in patients with Autism. The authors, who represent many important scientific groups concerned with allergies, gastrointestinal disorders, nutrition, and similar problems, concluded that children with Autism and related disorders should be assessed and, as approriate, given medical care just as would individuals without Autism. The team encouraged pediatricians to develop and employ “evidence-based algorithms for the assessment of abdominal pain, constipation, chronic diarrhea, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).”
Continue reading ‘Science, gastro-intestinal problems, diets, and Autism’
Archive for the 'Families' Category
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In “Hushing the intruders in her brain,” Shari Roan continued her account of childhood-onset schizophrenia as experieinced by January (‘Jani’) Schofield. In the current story, Ms. Roan provided an update about Jani’s and her family’s life and progress. The coverage includes content about changes in Jani’s therapy and medications, the family’s living situation, and other aspects of life with childhood schizophrenia. As previously, there are accompanying multimedia features to the story, including this video by Don Kelsen.
Continue reading ‘Jani’s story updated’
| Twelve key children’s services for community services boards |
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Right here in my home commonwealth of Virginia last week, Mira Signe, Vicki Hardy-Murrell, John Morgan, and Margaret Nimmo Crowe explained why it is important that government and private organizations attend to and address issues in children’s mental health. By explaining that Virginia has inadequate services and that one in every five children or youths experience mental health problems at some time during their lives, they made the point that that there is a tremendous need for public focus on these issues. This was the kick-off event for the Campaign for Children’s Mental Health.
The Campaign for Children’s Mental Health is a 3-year sustained effort to make mental health services more available and accessible to Virginia children in need. It will strongly endorse Governor-elect McDonnell’s call for system improvements; urge the General Assembly and state and local government to work collaboratively with the administration to address system deficiencies; and conduct a high-profile three-year advocacy and education drive to build public and political support for improved mental health services for children.
Only about one in 20 of Virginia’s children have access to the key services listed in the accompanying box. So, four out of five children who need these services do not have access to them.
No, Virginia, this is not an acceptable way to treat our children. Let’s do better.
- Down load the press release (source of the excerpt quoted here).
- Read coverage in these newspapers:
- Lynchburg News and Advance—Coalition pushes mental-health care for children
- Washington Examiner&mdash:Advocates start bid to expand children’s mental health services under bleak budget;
- Richmond Times Dispatch— Coalition advocate mental-health care for children
- Washington Post (blog)—New coalition has AG’s support for mental health reforms
- Visit (and support) the Web site of the Campaign for Children’s Mental Health.
- Download pdfs of “Survey of Community Services Board Child and Adolescent Services” and “Review of Community Services Board Child and Adolescent Services“; these are report by James W. Stewart, Inspector General for Virginia’s Mental Health, Mental Retardation & Substance Abuse Services (now called Behavioral Health and Development Services). The list of key services comes from these reports;
- Visit the Facebook page;
- Listen to a brief (3+ min) interview with Ms. Crowe from WMRA: Pushing for Children’s Mental Health Reform.
The story of James Delorey is, sadly, an instructive one. For those who have children, the possibility of a daughter or son being lost is a frightful concern. For those whose children have disabilities and are even more vulnerable than other children, having a missing child must be even more frightful.
James Delorey, a boy with Autism, was lost for many hours in the woods near the neighborhood of his home. Harold Doherty, the father of a child from the same Canadian province, chronicled the story on Facing Autism in New Brunswick. Here are references to his posts:
- 7 Year Old Autistic Boy Missing in Snow and Wind in Nova Scotia
- Harsh Autism Reality in Nova Scotia
- Autistic Boy Found After 2 Days of Wind and Snow
- Found After 2 Days in Cold Snowy Woods Autistic Boy Fighting for His Life in Nova Scotia Hospital
- James Delorey, 7 Year Old Autistic Boy, Has Passed Away
In “Autism: A journey of recovery” on the “American Morning” section of the Web site of CNN, reporter Kiran Chetry relates the story of Jake Exkorn and his family. Jake’s remarkable story is one of great losses in competence as a toddler, followed by persistent, intensive therapy during his childhood and substantial progress.
Review the transcript for this Autism story here.
Sphere: Related ContentWriting for MSNBC, Brian Alexander provided a thorough examination of the history and devastating consequences of some facilitated communication (FC). After making quick reference to the case of Rom Houben that has been in the news recently, in “Dark shadows loom over ‘facilitated’ talk: Opening minds or telling tales? Michigan family torn apart by abuse claims,” describes the wrenching effects of facilitated accusations of sexual abuse on the family of Aislinn Wendrow.
On Nov. 27, 2007, just a few days after returning to school from Thanksgiving break, 14-year-old Aislinn Wendrow created a shock wave by saying her father had “banged” her. Aislinn didn’t say it, exactly; she typed it on the keyboard of a digital device with the help of Cynthia Scarsella, her facilitator and an employee of Michigan’s Walled Lake school district.
The Wendrows’ story is not news; the charges against the parents were dropped in September 2008. Mr. Alexander intertwines the story of the Wendrow family’s nightmare with FC with the story of how FC was developed, adopted, challenged and found wanting, and yet is still being promoted. It’s an example of good journalism.
Link to “Dark shadows loom over ‘facilitated’ talk.” For more about the case of Mr. Houben, see “Deserving a careful test” on Spedpro. For more about the case of the Wendrows, see L. L. Brasier’s “Parents cleared in sex case file suit: Our autistic kids suffered, they say” from the Freep.
Sphere: Related ContentIn the November 2009 issue of Pediatrics, Tanya Froehlich and colleagues reported that maternal smoking during pregnancy and children’s exposure to lead were associated with diagnoses of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Each factor alone was linked to ADHD, and the two in combination had an even greater association ADHD.
Sphere: Related ContentOBJECTIVE: The study objective was to determine the independent and joint associations of prenatal tobacco and childhood lead exposures with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as defined by current diagnostic criteria, in a national sample of US children.
Continue reading ‘ADHD and smoking and lead’
Michael Aman and co-authors (and there are at least 25 of them) reported that a combination of medication and parent training in behavior management was more effective than medication alone in reducing behavior problems. They assigned families randomly assigned to receive either risperidone as well as parent management training or risperidone alone. After 24 weeks, they assessed the children’s behavior with parent-report measures. The parents who learned to use behavior management strategies reported lower levels of non-compliant behavior and irritability.
Continue reading ‘Meds plus behavior management for Autism’
Writing in the Chicago (IL, US) Tribune under the headline “Autism treatments: Risky alternative therapies have little basis in science” Trine Tsouderos and Patricia Callahan reported about the background and myriad problems with many treatments used as therapy for children with Autism. They expose the lack of evidentiary support for therapies ranging from mega-doses of vitamins to chelation and show the relationships between practitioners of these therapies and a couple of organizations well-known among those who follow Autism.
The Tribune found children undergoing daylong infusions of a blood product that carries the risk of kidney failure and anaphylactic shock. Researchers in the field emphatically warn that the therapy should not be used to treat autism.
Children are repeatedly encased in pressurized oxygen chambers normally used after scuba diving accidents, at a cost of thousands of dollars. This unproven therapy is meant to reduce inflammation that experts say is little understood and may even be beneficial.
Children undergo rounds of chelation therapy to leach heavy metals from the body, though most toxicologists say the test commonly used to measure the metals is meaningless and the treatment potentially harmful.
Reporters Tsouderos and Callahan conducted interviews with an impressive array of advocates for the therapies (including representatives of Autism One, Autism Research Institute, and Defeat Autism Now) and doubters (mostly serious scientists). They combed through the weak and barely related research that many of the advocates use as well as the evidence showing limited or no benefits of the therapies.
All in all, these reporters deserve kudos for the unflinching thoroughness of their reporting. I encourage readers to read, reread, and disseminate the article. Here’s a link to “Autism treatments: Risky alternative therapies have little basis in science.” Flash of the electrons to Liz Ditz, whose Twitter post about this article alerted me to it.
Sphere: Related ContentChildren and youths who were treated with “atypical antipsychotic medications” (aripiprazole, olanzapine, quetiapine, or risperidone) gained substantial weight and had changes in their metabolism in a study reported by Christoph Correll and colleagues in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The drugs, which are used to treat childhood schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and (sometimes) Autism, also caused changes in blood lipids.
| Drug | Brand Name |
|---|---|
| clozapine | Clozaril |
| risperidone | Risperdal |
| quetiapine | Seroquel |
| olanzapine | Zyprexa |
The medications, which are also known as second generation antipsychotics, are marketed under the names shown in the table at the right.
On average, the children’s weight gains differed across the different medications, ranging from 8.5 kg with olanzapine to 4.4 kg with aripiprazole. For better than half of the children, the gains amounted to more than 7% of their body weight. Changes in the children’s metabolism varied by drug, too; olanzapine caused the largest problems and aripiprazole caused no changes in metabolism (e.g., cholesterol).
Continue reading ‘Meds cause weight gains’
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