Autism?

[Jenn98]

The son of a good friend was just diagnosed. He's nearly three. She's heartbroken and I just don't know what to say. Any help out there?

[JBaxter]

http://www.danconference.com/

Start here. There is so much going on for autism. One of my dear friends son was diagonsed at 2. The earlier you can get help the better the outcome. She has him on a dairy free gluten free diet. She had him tested for heavy metal levels and found elevated levels in several areas she is also now anti vaccination.
DAN ( defeat Autism Now ) is a great group.

http://www.autismspeaks.org/
Autism speaks is also a good site for her to check out.

[Elilly]

Ditto everything above. We are now well on our way in recovering our son. Have her get a "rescue angel" from generation rescue. Biomedical intervention in addition to standard therapy has been a true miracle for us.

[spencersmommy]

Check out the blog of www.aliedwards.typepad.com Her son has autism and she has done a ton of research. she has lots of links on her site. VERY interesting. she posts about her son a lot, and he sounds like he is doing better. She has him on a gluten free diet (I think!). check it out.

[ppshah]

She's devastated and she's grieving. She needs to do that. Soon she will be read for action. I would recommend she get in touch with a local support group. Other parents of ASD kids are going to be her best resource. If he's alsmost 3, she also needs to get in touch with the school district to start the evaluation process.

Call her often and ask her how she is. Don't pretend the child and/or autism doesn't exist. I won't pretend it's easy, and it's a long hard road, but there are happy times and progress.

[supercalifragilous]

The new Nightline segment (last night) produced lots of articles on ABC's website. Here's the link:
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3006889&page=1
(Check out the related stories section on the left.)

Discover Magazine's April 2007 issue also contained a huge article on Autism.
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/apr/autism-it2019s-not-just-in-the-head

Time Magazine also covered Autism a few months ago - maybe the library will have old copies. http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020506/scautism.html

Also, the 1/29/07 episode of The View was devoted to Autism. The singer Toni Braxton recently found out that her son has autism and was there as a new spokeswoman. This site contains a lot of links.
http://abc.go.com/daytime/theview/autism.html

ETA: According to the schedule, this episode is scheduled to rerun THIS FRIDAY, April 6.

Here are some other links:
www.autismtoday.com
www.autismspeaks.org
www.autism-unravelled.org

[brittone2]

Another vote for them to get hooked up with a DAN doc ASAP. Definitely explore heavy metals and GF/CF diet.

I imagine he is already getting early intervention services?

[Jenn98]

>Another vote for them to get hooked up with a DAN doc ASAP.
>Definitely explore heavy metals and GF/CF diet.
>
>I imagine he is already getting early intervention services?
>

what's CF?

[brittone2]

casein-free, which is a dairy protein.

[supercalifragilous]

I agree with PP that she seek out a local support group and meet other parents in varying stages of therapy for their kids. There is SO much information out there and a lot of it may cause her to feel guilt b/c a lot of it speculates on how the autism/ASD might have been caused. Connecting with other parents would encourage her with a more proactive, "what can we DO about it" stance that will provide hope. Some of our local natural-foods stores have bulletin boards with meetings posted and she can also meet people through the DAN (Defeat Autism Now) conference or through online support/chat groups.

Just being newly diagnosed, she might just need support - it's just a LOT to deal with all at once and it can be really dizzying. I remember when my friend's DD was newly diagnosed at 2. She couldn't deal with recovery people b/c she personally needed to process the fact that her doctor just told her that her DD was autistic. She felt a lot of guilt having "missed the signs". She just needed a supportive friend at that time. When your friend is ready, she can seek out more proactive measures for recovery/therapy and it will also probably help her to know that she's not alone out there and connect with other parents. I hope her husband and friend are really supportive as well.