Family Anatomy » autism

Autism Treatment, Part 4: The importance of early intervention

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:34:57 +0000

The ESDM treatment model includes play therapy interventions. http://www.flickr.com/photos/westerndave/ / CC BY 2.0

Although it can be difficult to identify autism in very young children, promising new research suggests that treatment beginning between the ages of 18 and 30 months can result in significant improvements in intelligence and behaviour. As Dr. Gillian said in our interview this week on the Family Anatomy podcast, differences in early language development and nonverbal communication such as pointing are often seen in toddlers with autism, and early intervention is strongly recommended.

The new study, conducted by Geraldine Dawson and her colleagues and published in the journal Pediatrics, is the first randomized clinical trial of a treatment program for early behavioural intervention with autistic toddlers. In this kind of experiment, participants are divided into two groups; one receives the treatment being examined, and the other “control” group does not. In this way, any changes after treatment can be compared to changes in the control group.(...)
Read the rest of Autism Treatment, Part 4: The importance of early intervention (345 words)

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Post tags: ASD, autism, Early Start Denver Model, Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, psychology, research-based, treatment
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Autism Treatments, Part 3: Is "Full Recovery" Possible?

Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:00:17 +0000

Most people regard autism spectrum disorders (ASD) as life-long in nature. However, research over the past 40 years has shown that this is not always the case.

In the December 2008 issue of the journal Neuropsychology Review, researcher Molly Helt and her colleagues reviewed the evidence that some ASD children recover over time and end up functioning within the normal range with regard to social skills, cognitive abilities and adaptive functioning.

In their review they found that high intelligence, receptive language, verbal and motor imitation and motor development predicted recovery for a minority of kids diagnosed with ASD. Interestingly, the severity of their symptoms did not predict recovery. As is the case in many aspects of human psychological development, early intervention and treatment were also more favorable to recovery. In addition, a diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified was also more likely to lead to recovery in later years. (...)
Read the rest of Autism Treatments, Part 3: Is "Full Recovery" Possible? (231 words)

© Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ASD, autism, autism spectrum, psychology, recovery, research-based, treatment
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Autism Treatment, Part 2: Anatomy of Autism (Episode 89)

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:54:28 +0000

Child behind door 2 by vata

Doctors Brian and Giuseppe speak to Dr. Gillian Graham-Bevan about autism and its treatments.

Autism seems to be on the rise – but how can parents know if there’s a problem?

Are there signs to look for?

If your child is autistic, what treatments might be helpful?

Find out this week!

Listen here:

… or right click here to save the episode for later!

You can also get your free podcast subscription in iTunes. If you use iTunes, you can leave a review!

E-mail suggestions or questions to info@familyanatomy.com. Vote for The Family Anatomy Podcast at Podcast Alley and for the blog at Blogger’s Choice!

Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

© Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: autism, diagnosis, psychology, research-based, treatment
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Autism Treatments, Part 1: Using Anti-Psychotics for Autism

Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:00:26 +0000

http://www.flickr.com/photos/baston/ / CC BY 2.0

This week on Family Anatomy, we’ll be focusing on treatments for autism. Using anti-psychotic medications when there is no psychosis is considered “off-label” use. That is, physicians can prescribe it even though it has not been specifically studied and proved to be effective with a particular group of people. As a psychologist working with school-aged children, I have noticed the increasing use of off-label anti-psychotic medications for kids with severe aggressive behaviour. A small percentage of these kids are autistic.(...)
Read the rest of Autism Treatments, Part 1: Using Anti-Psychotics for Autism (657 words)

© Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: antipsychotic, autism, off-label, psychology, research-based, risperidone, treatment
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Autism, Part 5: Autistic kids at school

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:39:32 +0000

When I was in grade school, I didn’t know anything about autism. Autistic kids in my area at that time were generally educated either at home or in special schools. Today, the emphasis on the inclusion of children with special learning needs in mainstream classrooms means that kids are more likely to attend school with an autistic child. On top of that, there is an increasing number of diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders, meaning that teachers need to know how to meet the needs of kids with autism so they can help them to develop their skills.(...)
Read the rest of Autism, Part 5: Autistic kids at school (481 words)

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Post tags: Academics, autism, education, inclusion, school programs, segregation
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Autism, Part 4: What about treatment?

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:36:34 +0000

We heard in this week’s episode that the characteristics of autistic children can vary widely – which can make it difficult for researchers determine which treatments work best. One intervention that has received a lot of attention is Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), which has been shown to be effective in improving communication skills, school performance, and the ability to adapt to new situations. ABA is actually a number of techniques that include breaking tasks into individual components and teaching one step at a time. However, some clinicians believe that the range of difficulties experienced by autistic kids make it important to take a broader approach that goes beyond behaviour – one of these more “holistic” models of assessment and intervention was developed by The Ziggurat Group, a multidisciplinary centre based in Texas.(...)
Read the rest of Autism, Part 4: What about treatment? (524 words)

© Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: autism, autism spectrum disorder, treatment, ziggurat
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Autism, Part 3: Reading Faces

Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:01:43 +0000

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a commonly used term for a range of disorders that include autism and aspergers. The central experience for those who experience ASD is a difficulty with interpreting and responding to their social milieu. Researchers have been trying to determine the processes that lead to these social deficits. One recent study from University of Denver researchers Clark and McIntosh, and University of California San Diego researcher Piotr Windkielman looked at how well people with ASD interpret another person’s emotional state from their facial expression.

The study included a group of adults with ASD and a group of typically developing individuals. The premise of the study was that social interactions depend on the ability to rapidly extract emotional information from a persons fleeting facial expression. Their thinking was that reading another persons’ subtle and fleeting emotional expression often sets the stage for interpreting what is said thereafter. Therefore, if people with ASD have trouble in this area, then in a sense, they are already “behind the eight ball” so to speak. This initial difficulty in accurately perceiving the emotions evident in peoples’ face only gets compounded as the social interaction progresses. The researchers predicted that people with ASD would have more trouble extracting emotion from facial cues than people without ASD.(...)
Read the rest of Autism, Part 3: Reading Faces (327 words)

© Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ASD, autism, emotions, social skills
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Anatomy of Autism (Episode 82)

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:11:45 +0000

Doctors Brian and Giuseppe speak with Dr. Gillian Graham Bevan, a psychologist whose son has autism.

How does a psychologist react when she discovers her own child has an Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Find out in this week’s episode!

Listen here:

… or right click here to save the episode for later.

You can also get your free podcast subscription in iTunes. If you use iTunes, you can leave a review!

Leave us a comment, or you can e-mail suggestions or questions to info@familyanatomy.com. Vote for The Family Anatomy Podcast at Podcast Alley and for the blog at Blogger’s Choice!

Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

© Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: autism, autism spectrum disorder, Parenting Ideas, psychology
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Autism, Part 1: What You Need to Know

Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:00:31 +0000

All this week on Family Anatomy Dr. Brian and I will be focusing on the experience of Autism. In this first part, I will be focusing on autism’s origins and essential features.

Let me begin with a brief history of the disorder. In 1943, Dr. Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins Hospital, coined the term “autism”. However, for the next 40 years professionals considered autism to be a childhood form of schizophrenia. Early investigators highlighted a detachment from reality in these children. As a result, the idea that autism was an early form of schizophrenia made sense. However, we now know that autism and schizophrenia are two separate phenomena. Unlike people experiencing schizophrenia, persons with autism have not lost touch with reality, are not delusional, and do not experience hallucinations. Instead, children and adults with autism typically lack the cognitive abilities that allow them to develop age-appropriate social and communication skills.(...)
Read the rest of Autism, Part 1: What You Need to Know (702 words)

© Dr. Giuseppe Spezzano C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aspergers, autism, pdd-nos
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.

Stress is a major concern for parents of autistic kids

Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:07:08 +0000

Parenting may be the most rewarding job you’ll ever have, but most people would agree that it can be stressful. New research shows that mothers of some of the neediest kids show increased levels of stress, worry, and depressive symptoms.

In a study published in the July issue of the journal Autism, Annette Estes and her colleagues from the University of Washington examined the stress levels of mothers whose preschool-aged children were diagnosed with autism, and compared them to the moms of kids who were developmentally delayed but not autistic. By matching the autistic kids to developmentally delayed children with similar cognitive profiles, Estes was able to determine the difficulties specific to autism that link to maternal stress. Although some research on autistic kids is complicated by the diverse range of difficulties experienced by children with the diagnosis, Estes was careful to ensure accurate diagnoses as well as detailed information about behavioural functioning and the daily living skills of the participants.(...)
Read the rest of Stress is a major concern for parents of autistic kids (459 words)

© Dr. Brian MacDonald C. Psych. for Family Anatomy, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: autism, Behaviour, developmental delay, Mental Health, Pre-School, stress
Note: Posts on Family Anatomy are for education only, and are not intended to replace professional or medical advice. If you need to talk to someone about family or mental health issues, you can get a referral from your family doctor.