Team-BHP - The Autism Thread

Music /music therapy also helps a lot as well, my wife uses music when she works with kids with autism and kids with special needs and has found music to help.

"Benefits of Music Therapy for Autism

Music therapy helps people with autism in the following ways:

Increases language comprehension skills - A therapist may play songs that relate to specific activities to help the patient understand the meanings of words.
Encourages speech: The therapy can involve adding syllable and consonant-vowel sounds to music to increase language skills. The sounds help the person understand the pronunciation of words.
Helps with sensory issues: The music helps stimulate senses, focus attention and redirect self-stimulating behaviors toward socially appropriate behavior.
Improves two-way communication: Music can help build social skills and encourage peer interaction and conversation.
Promotes self-expression and emotional response: Music allows a person with autism to play music, dance, move, make noise or sing to express emotions.
Reduces monotone speech: Singing can help reduce monotonic speech by providing examples of the rhyming, word pronunciation and flow of speech accompanied by music.

Music therapy is particularly effective in developing speech and language skills. Speech and language impairments in autism range from mute to limited speech ability. Speech patterns may include sound making such as grunts or sophisticated nonsensical phrases.
Some people with autism also experience echolalia, the automatic repetition of words or phrases out of context. Both hemispheres of the brain process music, which allows a therapist to use music to stimulate cognitive function and build speech skills.
A number of people with autism have a natural talent for music and learn how to play instruments quickly. In fact, some autistic people demonstrate a rare savant or genius level music talent.
Music Therapy Activities

Music therapy activities include:

Listening to music: The act of listening to music can help a person with autism learn a word, activity or appropriate behavior. For example, a therapist may show a ball to the patient and then bounce the ball. He may sing, "This is a ball. This is a ball. The ball is bouncing. The ball is bouncing. This is a ball. This is a ball." This song teaches the patient about noun and action verb phrases and helps her better understand language.
Creating music with instruments: Playing instruments can stimulate senses and provide emotional fulfillment. It can also encourage speech. A music therapist may have a patient play a harmonica to build awareness of his ability to create sound from his throat, mouth and tongue. This awareness can help build speech skills.
Dancing to music: Dancing or moving to music can help a person express emotions. Moving to the music provides a stimulating outlet that can reduce self-stimulatory behavior such as hand flapping or twirling and encourage appropriate social behavior.
Singing: Singing songs can help a person with autism learn how to structure a grammatically correct sentence. The therapist sings a phrase, holding an object. The patient repeats the song, holding the object. For example, a therapist may hold up a banana and sing, "Do you eat bananas? Yes, yes." The patient will repeat then take the banana and repeat the song.

Music therapy can also teach appropriate responses to questions. The therapist may ask the patient to listen to a musical phrase or sound and explain what they hear. This helps a person put certain sounds in the appropriate context and may help with fear-induced self-stimulatory behavior and sensory issues."

source:

Music Therapy for Autism - LoveToKnow Autism

Quote:

Originally Posted by benbsb29 (Post 1924808)

Samurai, i didnt go through this thread earlier, and must say it was a great idea to put your experiences and learnings here for the benefit of others. I got to know about your son's special needs only when we met.

Thanks, most parents don't want to talk about it openly, therefore it is very difficult for them to get any info. Rest comments from my wife in Italics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by benbsb29 (Post 1924808)

Not sure if the child is autistic, but i make sure i always show greater affection towards her over the normal child whenever i meet her so she never feels different.

Can never be too careful with kids. The younger one might resent her sister if everyone does this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wmanu (Post 1926980)

@Samurai: My wife is a Speech Pathologist and trained with ABA Therapy. If you require any help/info, I shall get it from her.

They have a therapy center near BEML (near HAL/Indiranagar).

Thanks, currently we haven't decided on ABA therapy.

Quote:

Upto 20% of boys with autism have the condition due to Fragile X.

Had read up on fragile X syndrome long back, don't believe it is fragile X in my son's case. However only a chromosomal analysis can tell for sure.

Why does my son have autism? Could be due to HCG injections I received during pregnancy to avert the threat of miscarriage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ehow.com

Warnings

The use of HCG shots during pregnancy is a controversial subject in the medical field. The Food and Drug Administration has classified HCG injections as a Category X. In order for a drug to receive an "X" rating, studies conducted with the drug must result in fetal abnormalities in the both animals and humans. As a result, the FDA has determined that the risks of using a category X medication during pregnancy far outweigh the possible benefits to the mother or unborn child.

Quote:

Originally Posted by brat001 (Post 1929925)

Music /music therapy also helps a lot as well, my wife uses music when she works with kids with autism and kids with special needs and has found music to help.

Thanks for adding this brat001. Action songs are a favorite with my son too. I often start with "This is the way we brush our teeth" and sing all the way to "goodnight". Feel like a nutjob sometimes :-D

Music has been a lifesaver when nothing else seemed to get through, especially during full blown tantrums.

Some more thoughts penned down by my wife:

Few pointers on raising our children:

• Never leave the child alone. It is tempting to let him occupy himself and carry on with our work, since he hardly seems to miss our presence. Absolute no to using TV as the babysitter. Psychologists go as far as to say dump your TV in the garbage, because TV provides a very high level of stimulation and the child gets used to not having to respond.

• Get them to eat. My son used to self-restrict himself to about five foods. One day I just stopped cooking separately for him. He refused breakfast, cried, cried and cried some more but I did not offer him anything else. Finally around noon he ate it! This went on for a week, with some terrible crying, and some force feeding. After that the resistance stopped but he was eating unhappily. Today he enjoys eating everything like any other kid. I don’t think he remembers his comfort foods anymore!

• Toilet training. Our children may not be ready for this before 3 years, it has to be done slowly. To begin with, each day we record the time when child answers nature’s call. After about a week, we get a good idea when the child needs to go. So we take him to the toilet according to the timesheet. Sounds easy? Not so fast, the child does not want to do it in the toilet. In fact you might realize he wants to do it anywhere but. My son has been extremely manipulative, even now he does it in the toilet only 80% of the time. Just have to keep at it.

• Talk, Talk and talk some more. Tell the child what he is seeing, doing, what you are doing etc. etc. Recite some short stories. Vary your pitch and tone. Exclaim, raise your voice and sometimes drop it to a whisper. Anything to get him or her look and listen to you with interest. Do cut out all un-necessary words, long sentences can be confusing. Also back whatever you say with gestures. They could be simple ones like come, go, stop, sit, stand, etc…

Some more points...

• Play, at the park encourage them to climb the ladder, wade through tunnels; of course slide and swing (restrict swinging for hyperactive kids). Sand play by hiding and digging up toys. At home you could throw him up in the air and catch him, somersaults in the air, give him horseback and piggy back rides, etc. These movements help to improve the child’s vestibular and proprioceptive processing. Best done by dads!

• Take them out often. Our little one is quite a traveller. His best behavior is in the car! Maybe because he accompanied us on many long trips. On weekends we take him shopping, to the circus or to the movies. Difficult, initially we had to make sure we carry food, favorite toys, music etc. However, now we see that he is able to adjust to all environments; he gets quite excited at the prospect of an outing.

• Believe in your child. Our children take strength from our belief. It is for us to carry on happily and the child will catch on. I see consistent improvements since last year, not only in my son but in most children in his batch. With age and training their understanding is developing. It is just a matter of time before our children learn to function independently. Still, yes some things may always be more difficult for our kids but that will only make them resilient.

Super....Dint know a thread about Autism existed on T-Bhp. :)
Dont want to sound like a jerk, knowing the norms of the site. But we're producing an event in which we've been training 40 Autistic children for the last 3 months. Been having lovely connect and interaction with all of them. Have seen them improve over the last quarter.

Vivek Oberoi, being the gem of a person he is, has been supporting us bigtime apart from hordes of other known personalities from Film, Tv and Corporate industry. Vivek Oberoi meets specially abled children in Mumbai

All you guys in Mumbai are more than welcome to come and interact with the kids at our training studio.
And if it doesn't override the norms, i can also post details of the event, where all of you'll can be a part of this and support this social cause. :)

Cheers.

HI Samurai

Having faced similar situation with my 3 year son, I can Understand , what you have facing these days . Only difference is that The doctor in my case was trying to make some quick money, but still to confirm , i took opinion of 3 different doctors, Only one experienced doctor advised me against any kind of autism to my son. He duly advised us to get in touch with Aadi Institute in Hauz khas ( delhi ). ( Just to clear our Mind ) They specialize In Autistic Child. eventually, got my son check from them , the lady there played with my son for good 2 hours and assured us that our child is not autistic . later on I realized that the 2 doctors i consulted initially were hand in glove with each other and has discussed everything , But that day make me think seriously about our kid's need. I still remember that those were most difficult 3 days of my life. I was crying for all these 3 days , be on road or at home . It was like life has come for a halt to me.

Right now Also, My son has a Speech disorder ( he doesn,t speak few words clearly, although he understands everything ), Does his daily chores himself ( like Eating / Morning rituals / no particular eating habit etc) goes to play school with normal kids . I think , only thing missing in his early days was that he didn't have kids of his age around him to play with. i think, in today's lives where families are going more and more nuclear, it;s important that kids has their peers to play with. that helped me a lot . I have seen marked improvement in his behavior , once he started to play with kids of his age.

my best wishes for your and your family . Let me know if i can be of any help to you here .

Sushil, horrified to know there are docs who try to mis-diagnose autism on purpose for making money.

Quote:

Originally Posted by .sushilkumar (Post 2050498)

i think, in today's lives where families are going more and more nuclear, it;s important that kids has their peers to play with. that helped me a lot . I have seen marked improvement in his behavior , once he started to play with kids of his age.

Even my first kid was late in speaking for the same reason. Once he started attending school, he picked up very fast.

One of the side-effects of having an autistic child is the family, is the loss of social life. As some of you know I attend very few offroad events these days. I drive 400+ kms one way almost every week to devote time to office in Manipal and family at Bangalore. My wife who stays in Bangalore barely has time for any socialising. She spends 3-4 hours a day with the child at home teaching him words using books, video and other teaching aids. He has to be dropped and picked up from Montessori and Therapy. Then there is the older child who needs help in studies and project work. Thankfully he goes and comes back from school on his own.

Meanwhile, our neighbors in our apartment complex think we are aloof or unfriendly since we rarely socialize with other families in the building. It is very hard to socialize when you have an autistic child in the family.

YouTube - Autism Every Day - 7 minute version

Some more thoughts penned down by my wife:

Aditi Shankardass: A second opinion on learning disorders | Video on TED.com

Anybody following this line of thought or has more info on this?

Found this from googling, these seem to be the kind of seizures Dr.Aditi is referring to:

Most petit mal seizures last only a few seconds. Most commonly they involve staring episodes or "absence spells."
The person may stop walking or talking in mid-sentence, and start again a few seconds later. The person usually does not fall. The person is usually wide awake and thinking clearly immediately after the seizure.
"Spells" can be uncommon or occur up to hundreds of times in one day. They may occur for weeks to months before they are noticed, and may interfere with school function and learning. The seizures may sometimes be mistaken for a lack of attention or other misbehavior. Unexplained difficulties in school and learning difficulties may be the first indication of petit mal seizures.

Symptoms of typical petit mal seizures may include:
Muscle activity changes
No movement
Hand fumbling (especially with longer spells)
Fluttering eyelids
Lip smacking (especially with longer spells)
Chewing (especially with longer spells)
Consciousness changes
Staring episodes (unintentional)
Lack of awareness of surroundings
Sudden halt in conscious activity (movement, talking, etc.)

May be provoked by hyperventilation or flashing lights, in some cases
Abrupt beginning of seizure
Each seizure lasts no more than a few seconds
Full recovery of consciousness, no confusion
No memory of seizure

source: Petit mal seizure: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia