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Revealing Autism

The Secrets of Autistic Behaviour

Rehabilitation establishing new learning connections with Sensory Integration Therapy

 

Contents.

Chapter 1 History of Autism
Chapter 2 Identifying Autism
Chapter 3 Etiopathogenesis of Autism
Chapter 4 Sensory Integration Therapy
Chapter 5 The Secrets of Autistic Behaviour
Chapter 6 Neurological Organisation

 

Foreword

Whoever has to deal with autism, whether that person be a parent or a professional, has to be able to answer two questions; what caused the syndrome and how to cure it.

In this study course, we answer both these questions in a neurological perspective, as did Dr Carl Delacato in his book "The Ultimate Stranger -the Autistic Child". What causes the autistic syndrome is a disorder of the central nervous system, due to mild, but diffuse brain injury; he also suggested a sensorial-perceptive neuro-rehabilitation therapy for the natural learning progress to be reintroduced.

The title of this presentation "Revealing Autism" was chosen purely as a need for simplicity. There is now sufficient clinical evidence that autism is only one condition on a very wide scale of conditions. From mild presentation in terms of minor speech difficulty e.g. stuttering, behavioural problems such as attention deficit disorder, to severe multiple learning, and developmental delay, and at the most severe level of mobility difficulty, as well as learning and development delay e.g. cerebral palsy.

Thus, it is clear that the true title should read "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Dyslexia, Development Delay, Asperger Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy Revealed".

Finally, it can be shown that there is a probable link between brain injury, which gives rise to the condition, and recorded, prenatal and birth problems.

High definition scanning techniques link all these conditions, by identifying discontinuities in the brains of affected children at all levels. The position of the brain injury, and the intensity of the injury, determines the level of the affliction. Couple this with the fact that no two children's brains are identical and the very wide scale of conditions is easily explained.

So you have been informed by your doctor, health visitor, pediatrician, (you insert your own title) what you already suspected as a mother, father, carer, that your child was not developing at the rate it was supposed to, unlike your previous children or like the children of your best friends.
Your child at 18 months of age has been labeled as;

  1. Autistic.
  2. Autistic Syndrome Disorder.
  3. Developmentally Delayed.
  4. Add your own Label

At this point you may have been informed, after a thousand questions, like, how, where, when, and why, that there is little that can be done to help the child. However you may be told that a lot can be done to alleviate the discomfort and that an army of health visitors, occupational therapists, speech therapists, etc, can be made available on demand when the appropriate time arrives.

You can however take the self-help approach and continue to read.

All is not lost, by understanding what exactly is the problem with your child, there is a multitude of things you can do for yourself.

The problem is that your child has acquired a mild diffuse organic brain injury, that is compromising his central nervous system, and created a child, whose senses are being distorted, and its perception of the world in which it lives is totally unlike ours.


In simple language, it sees, hears, smells and generally perceives its environment in a distorted way to us.

These distortions are such, that, to survive in this world that it finds itself in, the brain has the ability to switch of some of the sensory gathering organs, to reduce, or eliminate the inputs which are overloading the child's systems.

Depending on the severity of the brain injury, will be the severity of the problem, and the speed, and level of the recovery.

Yes, recovery and management are possible, and, achievable by applying simple management principals.

So lets list the things you may observe and may have noticed about your child.

The following may not directly to apply to your child, but to brain injured children in general.

Difficult pregnancy.
Difficult birth.
Caesarian Section Birth.
Did not creep on hands and knees.
Went directly to walking from stomach crawling or bottom shuffling.
Speech has disappeared.
Development generally has stopped.
Has little or no eye contact.
Ignores requests or command.
Has strange repetitive behaviours.
Shies away from contact.
Cries a lot or even continuously.
Has rapidly changing bowel movements changing from constipation to diaoriha.
Irregular sleep patterns.
Eats everything or very little.
Is choosy about what your child eats.
Is difficult or impossible to toilet train.
Is frightened by loud or sudden noises
Cannot stay in busy bright environments.
Is hyperactive and is busy in an non constructive way.
Is a control freak ordering his or her life.
Puts everything in mouth.

Having now identified the neurological dysfunctional child we can now attempt to make all our lives easier by controlling the child's lifestyle.

Two new words suddenly appeared -"neurological dysfunctional"
In simple language your child's problems are to do with the injury in the brain and no, neither you, nor your child are psychotic or neurotic.

The good news is, some of the side effects of the brain injury can be alleviated by controlling what the child eats and drinks and, depending on the severity of the injury, most, or nearly all of the other effects, can be alleviated by doing simple physical and occupational therapies.

The first step is to consider diet. Certain food types affect some, but not all children. One of the principal food types giving children bowel problems is casein containing foods i.e. dairy products. To a lesser extent is gluten containing foods i.e. foods made from wheat flour.

By far the greatest problem to our hyperactive, non- sleeping, incontinent children is SUGAR. By elimination of all foods containing, or, made from refined cane and sugar beet produced sugar, as well as liquids containing high sugar content, the child becomes more manageable.

Take out of the food chain colourings, flavourings, high E numbers, as well as carbonated coloured sugar flavoured drinks, and monosodium glutamate, you can go a long way to reducing a lot of side effects of your child's brain injury.

Now the neurological aspects can be tackled. To lay the foundations of rehabilitation, two aspects are fundamental. Firstly all children should be made to creep on hands and knees, at least twice a day, for a maximum of two minutes each exercise, and this exercise should be practised for at least 4 months. Secondly to attend to vestibulary and proprioception difficulty, controlled slow spinning and controlled floor rolling are carried out at the same time, twice a day, 2 minutes each exercise for at least 4 months.

Control your home environment, for hyper auditory children, whisper to the child all the time, remember he switches off if his environment is too noisy, for hyper visual children, their environment should not be too bright.

At this point you can be directed to the writings and work of the Delacato Family who over the last 40 years have helped neurological dysfunctional children worldwide, and the readers attention is drawn to the following publications;-

"The Ultimate Stranger- the Autistic Child" by Dr Carl H Delacato.
"A New Start for the Child with Reading Problems" by Dr Carl H Delacato.
"Children who do not look you in the eye" by Dr Antonio Parisi.

Special thanks are given to Antonio for allowing me to reproduce into this piece the section of his book written by Anna Lisa Buonemo entitled "The Secrets of Autistic Behaviour".

Chapter One - History of Autism >>

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