I recently attended an information session regarding a nutraceutical product and some of the research behind it and its benefits. I must say that initially I was a bit wary. It had the air of a multi-level marketing “presentation” but I was pleasantly surprised. The presenter gave a relatively strong scientific presentation about the benefits of Immunocal and the research behind it. I would have liked to have had more research and more of the scientific details but I’m fairly certain that I was in the minority.

I was prepared for the usual bias due to receiving the information from the company and it’s paid researchers, but was pleasantly surprised by a comment from one of the physicians that was speaking. Continue reading →

I recently uploaded more documents to our repository and was very surprised to see that there is currently 245 documents stored there! It consists of 241 documents that range from media articles to research papers on various topics in autism. There are also 4 e-books that I have there as well in their own directory.

I would not begin to pretend that I have read all of them, but I have read a fair number of them and I do hope to continue to read more as I think that continuing to be informed is incredibly important. I hope the naming convention is fairly self explanatory, but if you can’t find something you are looking for I can search a duplicate cache of documents that I have indexed and share the results. We are very willing to help people find the information they may be looking for, assuming that it is a subject that we have some documentation on, so please do not hesitate to use the contact us link on our mainpage.

Comments, as always, are welcome.

The National on CBC ran an interview with the founder of The brain repair institute of Canada , a supposed treatment center for kids with autism and other neurologically based conditions like cerebral palsy. To say that I found the whole thing disturbing would be a GROSS understatement. Though she bases some of her claims on good science, she then makes outrageous claims that are totally unfounded and denied by the original researchers. A quick review of her website even shows many names of well known researchers that, in the interview, denied even knowing her or her work and would not endorse what she is doing.

I could rant extensively about many issues raised in the interview and their impact on families and their children, but I will let the reader decide for themselves.

You can watch the video online on the cbc website, or read a print version of the same program here .

I have stumbled across numerous full text books online as I have been searching for some ASD related topic. I hope to use this post to track those links and that particular source of ASD information.

Funny wiring. The author describes the book as follows:

My personal experience in living and working with a child with autism (my daughter) from diagnosis through adolescence up to adulthood. The book presents and delves into all aspects of the syndrome, focusing on the strategies and methodologies I found helpful in coping with and addressing the language, learning and behavioral challenges that children with autism present to parents and teachers. I also discuss at length what is going on neurologically in the autistic brain…

It is worth noting that google can be a great resource for books. They index a large number of books and provide large portions of the text for reading online. Some searches I found useful besides just searching for autism are:

Works by Simon Baron-Cohen

There is a listing on the US National institute of Health website about currently recruiting studies that focus on different aspects of autism. I only scanned the list briefly but found many topics of interest as they directly relate to information I have read previously or, more importantly, they relate to some of the interventions we are trying with K.

Many involve investigating the usefulness of drug therapies, but interspersed are investigations that, if performed correctly, will address much of the anecdotal evidence that is related time and again in parental testimonials. Continue reading →