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Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 13:51:00 +1000
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         LNCJB@CC.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU
Subject:      Re: Pronoun reversal
X-To:         AUTISM%SJUVM.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU

Dan,

I, for one, do understand. This is exactly what I was referring to in earlier
posts about viewing the body as detached from 'self'. I like your analogy
of the robot.....wish I had thought of it! :-)

Carolyn
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Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1992 12:17:46 EDT
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         Lisa S Lewis <LISAS@PUCC.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: bilingual homes

On Fri, 24 Jul 1992 12:18:07 EDT Altan Yazici said:
>Lisa S. Lewis wrote that she and her husband insist not to speak French
>when Sam is present in order not to confuse the autistic child by
>exposing the child to more than one language.  She may have a point,
>however, our experience is not in line with that.
>
>Our son, Anil, has always been non-verbal.  At home we speak Turkish.
>Anil's first exposure to English was when he was 2.5 years, at the
>pre-K school for special children.  Before that, he may have had
>very minimal English spoken to him.  Anil understands both English and
>Turkish.  We even tried FC once in Turkish, and it was quite positive.
>

Well, I never meant to imply that what we're doing is what everyone should
do.  And I have no idea whether or not we're right. But our son is not
non-verbal.  He talks a lot and his speech is actually one of his strengths.
In trying to build on that strength and increase his command of English,
Serge refuses to speak French to his mother when Sam is around.

By the way, when Sam was under two and had very little language, his grandma
was babysitting for him.  He started to sing (as he often did...using la las)
and she claimed that he "sang" only the French songs he knew, rather
than the English ones (and he knew MANY more English songs than French.)
It was very interesting....

Lisa
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Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 10:50:00 +1000
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         LNCJB@CC.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU
Subject:      Re: autism and antibiotics
X-To:         AUTISM%SJUVM.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU

Helen was three before she had her first dose of antibiotics and I didn't
take any during the pregnancy, but I did suffer a yeast infection during the
pregnancy (from eating oranges). So could it be that rather than the
antibiotics (which can cause yeast infections in susceptible people) that is
the problem?

Carolyn
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Date:         Fri, 31 Jul 1992 09:11:42 LCL
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         RJKOPP@SUVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: losing speech
              30 Jul 1992 09:40:36 -0500 from <dgood@UB.D.UMN.EDU>

I don't beleive my daughter suffers from this but I do wonder when a
doctor or whatever would feel this is appropriate (age wise).  I was
also curious what the usual time to take effect is, It seems extremely
fast for Don, but then again I think he understood what it was trying
to achieve at the time (am I correct?) and I wonder if it was tried with
someone who might not understand how it would work how long it would
take to see effects.

Don, Did the books that you read (assuming that's how you picked this
up) give approximate times and what are the best reading for reference
to this, I think you gave it before just want to make sure everyone
has access to it.  I might also someday try to put it into a reading
reference list with some other pertinent reading.


Thanks,
Ray Kopp
Syracuse, New York
Internet:rjkopp@mailbox.syr.edu
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Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1992 01:09:09 EDT
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         "Jean B. Hunter" <MS3Y@CORNELLA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Losing speech.
              23 Jul 1992 10:44:00 +1000 from <LNCJB@CC.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>

Hi Carolyn - There is an autistic child in our town who lost speech. She
lives in a bilingual household and had a vocabulary of about 200 words
in both languages at around 18 months.  When her folks moved up here she
started to lose her language and was completely mute within a couple of
months.  She is 5 now and still doesn't talk, although she has started
using f/c.
   At her keynote address for the Syracuse conference on autism, Temple
Grandin specifically mentioned an autism pattern that she called "late-
onset regressive" which corresponds to loss of speech, etc.  I haven't
seen that terminology elsewhere but probably for want of looking...
   Good luck in your struggles with the school bureaucracy!
Cheers -- Jean
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Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 11:22:00 +1000
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         LNCJB@CC.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU
Subject:      Re: Spinning
X-To:         AUTISM%SJUVM.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU

I have known that 'spinning' was a characteristic of our condition for many
years now. There are only a few things my father remembers about me as a
child: 1) I used to spend hours being a 'top'; 2) I spent more time upside
down than rightway up; 3) I spent all my school vacations in summer in the
water (we lived beside a lake, which was unpolluted then) and 4) I always
walked around on 'tippy-toes'. When I first observed these same behaviours
in my children, I knew it was part of what we are, even though at the time
I didn't know what that was. I assumed it was related to our 'visuality' since
the time spent in the water was mainly under it....with eyes open. Is it
possible that different types of visual input has a role to play in this
behaviour (as well as the other explanations given)?

Helen's favourite activity is jumping on her trampoline, but she is also
difficult to get out of the bathtub. She still walks around on her toes and
wears her brothers out getting them to spin her. There has been a marked
reduction in her hyperactivity levels since she has had the trampoline and
dramatic improvements in her ability to interact with others, but I'm not
sure how related these are - it just may be due to a natural maturational
process....but allowing her to indulge in these activities definitely does
her no harm.

Carolyn
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Date:         Fri, 31 Jul 1992 11:22:00 +1000
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         LNCJB@CC.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU
Subject:      Re: Losing speech. (fwd)
X-To:         AUTISM%SJUVM.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU

>The explanations by Michael Pierce and others that *some*
>autistic children have/learn speech, then lose it could reverse
>the decision of hospitalization carriers to not cover speech
>therapy. If the child has speech before the onset of autistic
>symptoms/characteristics, it seems that coverage for therapies
>could be provided because it *now* fits the definition of
>"medically necessary".

That's a good point, Anne. It might be interesting to try that argument
with the insurance companies. I suppose that they're going to want proof
though that the child actually 'had' speech before the onset of the
symptoms. This may be rather difficult, unless the parents had the foresight
to make a recording of the child talking, but what of those children who
have early onset - I think they would probably get away with the argument
that single word utterances are not speech (even though from a linguistic
point of view I do consider them to be). It would make an interesting
legal challenge to define at what stage a child is considered to have
acquired speech. Does anyone know if such a thing has been done before?

Carolyn
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Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 09:38:00 PDT
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         DANM@MSMAIL.HUMAN.CORNELL.EDU
Subject:      autism and antibiotics

Serge,

I had never heard about the hypothesized correlation between early antibiotic
use and autism.  Alex had an arm fracture when he was delivered. Young baby's
bones are all cartiledge so breakages don't appear in initial X-Rays (only
when the bone starts to heal does the fracture become visible). Thus when his
arm began to swell dramatically there was a possibility that the cause was
infection.  This, coupled with my wife's water breaking several hours prior
to our ability to get to a hospital, convinced my son's pediatrician to put
him on antibiotics for a few days to prevent the possible spread of infection
to his brain.  Alex did not have an infection -- the fracture appeared on the
X-Ray a few days later and all blood tests cam back negative -- but he did
have strong doses of antibiotics from his 2nd to about 5th day of life.

Dan
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Original-From: Bill Duncan <ihpds1!bill>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.autism
Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 12:16:14 CDT
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         bill@IHPDS1.ATT.COM
Subject:      Re: Vitamin B6.

Sorry - this is a bit long, but I think it's important.
There's also an article about this in Dr. Rimland's newletter
(Autism Research Review?) - Bill
------------------------------------------------------
Article: 31338 of alt.activism
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.autism
Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1992 14:35:17 PDT
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         Leon Ungier <ungierl@CCMAIL.ORST.EDU>
Subject:      No Subject Given

> Lisa S. Lewis wrote that she and her husband insist not to speak French
> when Sam is present in order not to confuse the autistic child by
> exposing the child to more than one language.  She may have a point,
> however, our experience is not in line with that.

> ....  At home we speak Turkish.
> Anil's first exposure to English was when he was 2.5 years, at the
> pre-K school for special children.  Before that, he may have had
> very minimal English spoken to him.  Anil understands both English and
> Turkish.  We even tried FC once in Turkish, and it was quite positive.

> ....  We indeed initially
> were thinking that his speach delay was probably because of the bilingual
> environment, and that he would grow out of it.  But, soon we noticed that
> there were no signs of confusion and Anil was very comfortable with
> both languages, and his speach delay was due to his autism.

> So, that is our experience.

> Altan

          Ours too. If anything, I would say that the bilingual environment
          actually helped David; he still endlessly asks what's that in
          Polish or what it's in English? His problems are not with
          the language but with abstract concepts whether expressed
          in English or Polish. He is actually more careful than we are
          as  not to mix the two in a sentence or an expression and
          he speaks equally easy in either one. I hope this answer your
          question, Ray.

>... A normal speaker will easily notice how incredibly confusing pronouns are,
> when trying to correct the reversal.  "you want a cookie!" "No, you say, *I*
> want a cookie." Forget it!  The only way to clear it up is to simplify it:
> "do you want a cookie" "You want a cookie." "Say: *I* want a cookie."
> It does work, but it takes lots of patience and persistence (we're still
> working on it with our four year old.)

         In our case it helped (we think) to refer to David by name even
         when speaking directly. So we would say "David wants cookie?'
         and he would respond 'David wants cookie' or 'David does not want
         cookie'. This lasted for quite a while but gradualy he realized
         the proper usage of pronouns, presumably from hearing how we
         are refering to ourself; my wife would say 'Leon! YOU! want a
         cookie?' aand my response; 'I! don't want a cookie' and staff like
         that. The side effect of this is our younger son found it funny
         and even now sometimes jokingly speaks of himself in 3rd
         person: 'Daniel is tired or Daniel is hunngry'.

Cheers,
Leon
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Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 08:40:47 LCL
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         RJKOPP@SUVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: FC Skeptics

From a layperson's point of view, this has been extremely helpful with
my daughter.  She had a bit of motorical difficulty when she was young,
Didn't like being moved through much of the physical therapy motions.
At home we had real good times rough housing with my daughter, even when
other times things were pretty hard.  When I went to my daughters pre-school
and told them, they started using the methods you mentioned, such as rolling
my daughter down a great big wedge..  She loved it and they experienced much
the same as you mentioned, ease into tasks after it and easier to get through
other physical therapies that they needed to do.  They described it to me
as a vestibular exercise.

Like you have mentioned, many others who did not quite have the experience
this person had were not familiar with it and really seemed alittle afraid
to try it on my daughter (She often looked kind of frail or helpless, something
about the eyes!).  I can't remember an OT ever trying it, and the OT has
always seemed to lack in effect to me.  My daughter still has troubles with
fine motor skills, and it still isn't one of her favorite therapies.
Physical Therapy I think she enjoys, she also will go right over to the things
that she likes to work on and they do tend to be some of the more rough-house
types of things.


Thanks,
Ray Kopp
Syracuse, New York
Internet:rjkopp@mailbox.syr.edu
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Date:         Fri, 31 Jul 1992 11:56:00 +1000
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         LNCJB@CC.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU
Subject:      Re: losing speech
X-To:         AUTISM%SJUVM.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU

Deb,

At the outset let me state that although I am not an advocate of patterning
I would not deny any parent the right to try anything that they consider
might be able to help their child. I tried Delacato's methods years ago
to help myself and my children with our right/left confusion...with no
success. We still have to hesitate before referring to either direction and
even then we often still say the wrong one (think 'right' say 'left'). Helen
is the only one who doesn't have any difficulty in this regard. I think I
overcome this problem by constantly referring to her body parts as being on
the right/left from the time she was a baby. Constant reinforcement seems to
have worked far better for us than patterning.

>Thought others might be interested in the following.  My 6 year old PDD son had
>   a visit with a developmental opthamologist
>yesterday as we and his teachers had concerns about how he perceived
>things.

Could you tell us a little more about your son? Why was he diagnosed PDD rather
than any of the other more explicit terms available? What sort of symptoms
does he have? What age was he when you first noticed these differences? What
are your 'concerns about how he perceived things'? etc.

>As long as we were there, we asked about patterning since
>our son's speech can be garbled sounding.  She indicated that he was too
>young to proceed with that type of therapy.

I would have thought that any type of therapy should be commenced at the
earliest possible stage. My youngest son was referred for speech therapy at
this age because his speech was garbled and no-one except for family members
was able to understand him. It only took six months before he was speaking
clearly. All the speech therapists did was make him practice speaking slowly
(sounds easy, but in fact it was very difficult for him to learn to do).

Carolyn
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Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 10:09:26 EDT
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         Lisa S Lewis <LISAS@PUCC.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: autism and antibiotics
              22 Jul 1992 09:38:00 PDT from <DANM@MSMAIL.HUMAN.CORNELL.EDU>

Re: autism and antibiotics...Serge and I discussed this at more length
than he posted here and I'd like to add to this (though most of the
ideas were originally his.)

First, it seems to us that *many* of the autistic children we know/have
heard of have lots of allergies.  It seemed possible to us that at some
*critical period* if antibiotics are given, then an allergic-like reaction
could be at play.  Certainly MANY young children are given antibiotics
without becoming autistic later on. But perhaps it is both the timing of
the drug and the allergic reaction to it?

I suggested it would be interesting to see what if any correlation there
is between autism and season of birth.  E.g. we have two children, one
born in summer and one in winter. Sam (who is autistic) is the summer baby.
At six months he experienced his first winter (and with it his first colds/
bronchiolitis/ear infection and antibiotic treatment.)

Jake was born in December.  Though exposed to colds when very young, he
was presumably protected from a lot of bugs through the passive immunity
conferred by breastmilk.  He got a sniffle or two, but it didn't turn into
a bad cold, and his ears stayed clear.  Presumably next season he will get
colds (and maybe an ear infection) but he will be older then.

We realize, of course, that correlation doesn't imply causality, but we
are wondering how many studies of this type have been done (if any.)

Lisa
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Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1992 14:36:43 LCL
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         RJKOPP@SUVM.BITNET
Subject:      Loss of Speach and Pronoun reversal in Autistics

I want to express a thought that was referred to me from someone who
just got on our list but is still working out the fine points like
how to reply to a message.  Apparently they have some problems with
this with his host system.

Anyway,  The point he wanted me to pass on is that the reversal of
pronouns and also the loss of speach are two very common events in
many autistic children.  And they are in no means unusual for autistic
children.

I hope I got that right Herb!

Thanks,
Ray Kopp
Syracuse, New York
Internet:rjkopp@mailbox.syr.edu
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Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 16:40:08 LCL
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         RJKOPP@SUVM.BITNET
Subject:      Re: FC Skeptics

on Tue, 21 Jul 1992 16:03:44 EDT <IP15217@PORTLAND> said:
>numbers a little disturbing, I also have to note that there are "trust" issues
>involved that the statistics are not addressing.  Even my daughter will only
>facilitate with selected people that she trusts and only if they hold her hand
>appropriately.
>
>
>          Curtis Maurand   "IP15217@PORTLAND.BITNET"
>                           "IP15212@PORTLAND.MAINE.EDU"

Curtis,
   Could you include a little about your daughter such as age, if she is
tactily defensive, what her best facilitator is using it for and if you
have tried and how successful you have been?

Thanks,
Ray Kopp
Syracuse, New York
Internet:rjkopp@mailbox.syr.edu
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Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 15:19:00 +1000
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         LNCJB@CC.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU
Subject:      Reply from Cluster Director.
X-To:         AUTISM%SJUVM.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU

I received the following letter this morning:-

"Dear Mrs Baird

I acknowledge receipt of your letter of 7th July, 1992 concerning the
implementation of sections of the Freedom of Information Act at
Glendale East Public School and inform you that I will discuss the
information contained in your letter with the Principal of Glendale
East, and the School Counsellor, and advise them accordingly.

Thank you for bringing this matter of concern to me personally.

Yours sincerely


A J Negline
Cluster Director
Lake Macquarie West
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday was the first day of 3rd Term and today Helen is off sick - it was

bitterly cold here last night and she woke up with a very croupy cough this
morning - so I haven't spoken to the Principal yet to find out what (if
anything) has been said yet.

According to my bank statement the cheque I sent the F.O.I. has been
presented, so I should be hearing news from them shortly.

Carolyn
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Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 18:12:31 PDT
              <AUTISM@SJUVM.BITNET>
From:         Leon Ungier <ungierl@CCMAIL.ORST.EDU>
Subject:      No Subject Given

> You mentioned that David acquired 20 to 30 words before he lost speech. At wha
t
> age did this happen? Was the loss possibly precipitated by some traumatic
> experience? I ask these questions because a similar thing occurred with Helen.

> Helen said her first word at 3 months and ...

> I mentioned this 'loss of speech' to Dr. Fenelon last week. He said he had
> not heard of this happening in this way before. Does any of this sound
> familiar to anyone?

Our autistic son (also David) now 13 also lost some words he learned
earlier but  with no apparent correlation with his life events. I do
not buy though this story aabout good and bad genes (Dr. Jectyl and
Mr. Hyde). I am angry because the bad genes took over than I am good
again because of the good genes. Is that how it works? Then apparently
David's bad genes are taking over now. Like other autistics he always
liked to stick to routines and paterns but now he is inventing more
and more of these. For example, he gets very unhappy now if he happened to
put his shoes last (he does not want to put them on first
either). Recently he is unhappy if he thinks he is walking out
of the room (any room) last and so on. He is unhappy all day if
he wakes up after seven am. So very often he would wake up at 6
or 5 or ealier and spend all the time staring at the clock. The
problem is to figure out what is for us to do: give in to these
and possibly promote these and others or fight and make him very
unhappy?

On a different subject.  Carolyn mentioned
about the difficulty her daughter has with learning pronouns. I remember
vividly how long it took David to compreehend the fact that we
say "You" to someone but "I" when refering to yourself. He would
just say 'you want juice', meaning 'I want juice' then, gradualy
he started to refer to himself by his name like 'David wants
juice, David doesn't want to go to bed, and so on. Now he refers
to himself in normal way which to me means that you can teach him
(and presumably others) almost anything though the learning is
infinitesmaly slow. I was told that what we are usualy taking for
granted ('you' becomes 'I' and vice versa depending on a reference frame)
is actualy quite an abstract idea. To be fair, I should probably
mention here that we are bilingual family (English is not my or
my wife's mother's tongue) and we mix English and Polish freely when
talking at home.

Cheers,
Leon
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