Life-Changing Treatment Through Early Identification

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Recently, exciting studies in the field of Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) and related conditions are now emerging, documenting the reversal of the condition. The successes are attained almost exclusively through lifestyle changes and psychological interventions, but depend upon early implementation.   For this reason, early detection and screening is CRUCIAL. 

It saddens us when parents come in to our practice 5-6 years into the life of a child, telling us that they consulted with their pediatrician or a therapist when their child was 12 or 18 months old, but were told that "It's way too early to make a diagnosis at this point". Gosh, is this wrong and harmful information! Nothing could be wronger. As all know, instinctively, milestones of speech and motor development start happening at 6, 8, and 12 months, on a predictable timetable, thus we can easily detect a delay. Even socialization can be observed at these stages, since babies should be responding to parental interactions with smiles, eye contact, laughter and pleasure from 3-4 months. But even where firm diagnosis cannot be made yet, the life-changing interventions that can reverse the condition can still be done, since they promote only better health, and 'do no harm'.  

Since tracking of the child's progress in meeting these developmental milestones relies heavily on comparison with the peer group, the screening for a problem occurs primarily through interview of the parents and other caregivers, and filling out of questionnaires by these individuals that provide symptom ratings based on national norms, and then too, clinical observation of the child in our office. For example, the basic reflexes of early childhood phases are often abnormal in children with atypical neurological development. Putting all of this together, we can come up with a rating that reliably tells us whether the infant or toddler will probably develop along autistic, or normal lines. This will provide the crucial information needed to determine whether early interventions must be started, or not. Of course, it can happen that we relieve the parents' fears by saying that all appears normal, and they can happily continue their holy mission of parenting the child in their own, unique manner.  

We have known for a very long time that speech, socialization, cognitive processing, and motor development, all progress through critical phases, and occur at times gradually, at other times in sudden bursts. The critical phases, such as: first use of single words, then joining words together to construct complex meanings, then use of words in manipulative manner to achieve an outcome (e.g. "want milk"); these are all windows of opportunity during which the child must cross a rubicon of cognition, or possibly miss the acquisition of that stage. A non-verbal child at 10 or 11 years of age has most clearly missed those stages, because they have not attained the understanding that words are used to influence towards their desired outcomes, like getting the food they want, a toy to play with, or milk to drink. While we can do some 'catch-up' later, if interventions manage to fix the neurological problems preventing the learning, it will never be the same as children advancing on time through their critical phases, building on their knowledge in age-appropriate manner.  

Here are some of the things we know, with certainty: inflammation is an enemy of neurological development. If there is elevated inflammation, learning cannot ensue normally. Collection of toxins in the brain, and body, can be another source of problem (which will also drive inflammation higher). This can come from specific conditions during pregnancy with the child, exposure of children or babies to particular foods or environmental stimuli of which they are intolerant, sensitivities to stimuli, reactions to persistent bacterial or viral infections that linger in the body (e.g. ear or strep infections), tick bites, and many more potential factors. A term being used to describe the thorough assessment needed with regard to these factors is that of "allostatic load". 

This term is used to refer to the cumulative sum of chronic stresses on a young child's body and mind. At a certain point, on this matter, body and mind are in essence the same thing, meaning: stress upon our systems, whether of psychological or physical nature, causes a cascade of hyper-adrenergic reactions, like excessive adrenaline, cortisol, and cytokines. This will drain actual energy sources in the body, like ATP, CCO, and actual electrical charge in the cells and neurons, reflected in pH levels. And all of this will cause...you guessed it, inflammation. So the objective, for all children, if we wish to optimize their development, is to reduce the allostatic load, reduce inflammation of brain and body, and ensure the healthy stimulation that the brain needs, for the critical phases to be optimally met.   

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