The DSM-IV criteria for diagnosing autism, PDD-NOS, Asperger's Syndrome, Rett's Disorder, and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder are posted. These are the criteria that doctors use to determine autism and related disorders. More...

This was posted today on MSN. I don't know the particulars about this case, but I think it certainly deserves a look. Chelation is a therapy that is quite experimental, and one of the reasons we didn't try it was because we didn't know what the long-term side effects would be on the other organs of the body versus the possible positives. However, I never imagined that it could cause cardiac arrest. See Story -- Sandra Sinclair

One of the most difficult things for me along this journey is sifting through the mountain of information about autism.

I  felt  from the beginning that there was no place to pull it all together, to show which approaches were valid, which worked, how to do them, and how to customize them for our individual child. There also seems to be a lot of old and rigid ideas out there.That's why I started this website.

As a parent, I started by writing about what has worked for us. But I'm always looking for new ideas about what works for others as well. We can all learn from each other.

Take what you can from this site and the many other resources and sites out there, and use whatever parts are relevant to your child and your family. All of our children and families are different. Not the same approach works for every child or for every family.-

That being said, next on the rigid, old ideas. --Sandra Sinclair

 

One of the things that really helped us was to find out about special needs trusts. It's something that an estate planning attorney can help you with, and you don't have to be wealthy for it to greatly benefit your children. Often it results in tax savings, privacy, and ease of transition for the family, as well as possibly keeping your child from being disqualified for government benefits as a result of having inherited money, propery, etc from you in their name. Of course, I'm not an attorney, and this type of setup is not for everyone, but it's a good thing to investigate further with an estate planning attorney for your family to see if it would benefit. Suze Orman has something called Protection Portfolio, and more recently, has a will and trust-making kit. However, I'm not sure if the kit covers special needs trusts, tax savings trusts, or any other more specific trusts or not.  Also SuzeOrman.com has a resource link to will and trust attorneys. -- Sandra Sinclair

I think the idea of a "critical period" for learning and brain development is a silly, outdated notion, so I was very happy to see Dr Gutstein's quotable on the rdiconnect newsletter this week. In it, he said that he and most modern neurological researchers don't accept the idea of the 'critical period'. "We outright reject the myth that if certain abilities are not developed by a certain age it is too late. There is no evidence in autism to support this." You can read further on www.rdiconnect.com.

Isn't that amazing? It's incredible to me how these ideas get started and just spread around, like urban myths. I don't know who said we had reached our brain potential by the age of five, but boy, that's an idea whose time came and went about 30 years ago. Just let it go, please!

By the way, how could a stroke victim possibly rebuild a new brain pathway if this was the case? We all know that stroke victims can rebuild new brain pathways through therapy and special exercises well into old age. (aka over the age of five). -Sandra Sinclair