hello and welcome to navigate autism with jane lynch and i'm your host jane limber and today i have a great lineup for you i'm excited to share some new things i've learned about to take you into my kitchen to introduce you to my special  answer one of your questions so sit back relax and have fun  here are some powerful options to remove toxic heavy metals from your intestinal tract salon tro parsley zeal light in the clay form  ina garlic say l good a good to me plantation leaf never knew about the red clover blossom wow these are quite a few things i love this book the medical medium and what you just heard me reading are some very powerful options as it says to remove toxic heavy metals from your intestinal tract now i found that with my son actually all of us we have heavy metals in our body and i've also learned that we passed them down from generation to generation so if that's the case i have a lot and my children have even more so how do we how do we help our bodies and get rid of it well this book talks about some easy ways there herbs that we can just simply go to the grocery store to infuse into our diet i do want to tell you that what i've learned when i read something like this i get so excited i want to run out and buy it all and try it all but if you do that it's too much there's too much healing ordered or cleansing that takes place in your child or yourself could go in some kind of healing crisis so the way we have done is take one thing at a time one week at a time so why the added spirulina in the powder form and i'll do that one week at a time then i'll then i'll see how he goes and if he's handling ok i'll add one more thing like the parsley or the salon tro so those are some natural ways that you can help to remove heavy metals and toxins from your body today in the home or in my kitchen again because i want to show you an easy way to kind of improve your town's diet friesen more healthy options into your child's diet if that's something that you're looking to do i'm really lucky that my son loves vegetables not all of these i'm going to talk about today so let me tell you how i'm starting to get more into eating vocabulary so to speak first important thing is that when your child comes home for going on because they're in that frame of mind and they're wanting it now so what i do is i plan ahead and i cut things up and leave it in the refrigerator so that when i meet them like at snack time they are ready to go the things i like to put in the high there is only three and some carrots anything else you think your child might live week but i'm going for vitamins and minerals crunch because that's something he really likes for his teeth so first i wash that's the bills and then i just cut them up in pieces that are easy for him to use to eat not too big but not too small and i offer them to when he comes up so what i would do is i would have a plate on the table with a couple of these options and maybe a few chips lately what he's been doing and coming in and looking at them and then going straight to the pantry so i mean that's not what i want mom  act on it and start to eat it now you may be thinking yeah right think it's teenager or any age child to eat something help is not always easy so that's why we start with like the ones that you can have your cookie you can have your chips but you need to eat one carrot as well and pretty soon unless it's something that you really really don't like you'll see that they say your child will start to eat a little bit more of that thing i don't know that william is going to like a red pepper but i'm going to try because as much as i can introduce different vitamins and minerals textures to him that's better right because some point to extend our and then this is what you want to do once you have everything cut up take it out of tupperware or plastic container and just put them in here the reason i like this because easy access piece of something healthy and again it's easy and quick for you you're not scrounging all last minute and hardly missing the birth and trying to get something healthy into your kids the longer you want and i'm so excited to introduce you to my friend katie out of known for several years and she works with brains and al visits and many other things and i just love learning from her to see autism and what brings you down and work with the kids you're ok well i got into this work in general for my son who is twenty one now but my son oscar had a stroke before it was born and he and so i was on a mission to find programs that were not drug related that would help him reaches potential as high as he could go and so i was on a internet support groups all over the and some parent mentioned range of these movements that make your brain work better and i was really intrigued and ended up taking a class and in my first brain gym class the instructor said there is a school program called balla visits that sense for balance auditory vision exercises and it's like juggling on the floor and so you about tracking polls or you pass them eggs in these rhythmic patterns so it's fun it's like a game and it integrates your brain typical mom so and i decided i would take that class so in the brain gym class c c the instructor worked with kids in the class and i we could watch the first child that came in that she worked with was on the spectrum and she was number of all she was proud about ten years old and she came in there were forty five of us as a big group and it was a really big room in this mom brought her daughter in and she had to go out and touch every single person in but it's like that had just she was able to relax before our eyes so that was pretty and that's amazing given that there are forty five of you that's hard right but i mean  i took the class or any of the bill hubert is the man who originated the program and he was coming to michigan to teach and i thought i had don't know if i should take this class since i asked for just has one functioning hand what worked for him and i read this book and i thought you know i've got to do it you know i think your work so i took the class and i asked bill if he would work with asker but he agreed to work with them afterwards and with bell business week we check how a child's ice track and bill does it with this really fancy it's a tennis ball on a string it's very high tech and he has the child lay down on the ground so you take gravity out the equation and then he does this little pattern of you know back and forth and up and down and i can also in circles you know just a minute or so and ask or tracking at that point was kind of like know you could occasionally see the bar but he could not move his head individually but was i separately from his head so you know bill sets them and then he has a mandela visits you stand on a rock or board if possible which is just one side the side that and he was able to do it ten minutes later ten minutes so i'm saying there tears are streaming down my face and my mom's there him to michigan twice a year just so he can work with oscar and then in the process train teachers and occupational therapists visit us and so i've probably been to thirty some trainings and then eventually sanctioned me to teach is work but i've i've just seen it do amazing things the brain gym just to kind of separate the two there are two different programs but they're both brain integration programs ok so movement so they have that they're kind of similar focused so the brain gym is a system of twenty six different movements and you each one takes between thirty seconds up to a minute you don't have to do up twenty six you can pick one or a couple of them and the idea is that they were under stress our nondominant have this fear tends to shut off or different parts of our brain shut off under stress but through movement we can reactivate  and so we become whole brain again dream movement and then whatever are doing we don't have to try to do it we can just do it so bring your movements help with emotional regulation so you know stress reduction they can improve attention focus they can help with memory they can help with eye tracking and a tory processing gross motor coordination fine motor report nation and since everybody is unique i can't say it will this exercise is going to help you do this but we have kind of general guidelines and some people respond to it it is literally like flipping a switch where the child do it or and then how how many minutes a day are let's say that's a great question so if a child can mimic the movements a therapist could demonstrate the elements and if the child can imitate them that's great if the child is an able to imitate them then the parent the therapist can remember through it and that still gets the parents to the point that eventually they'll be able to do it on their are one of the most famous pranging movements is called the cross crawl where you lift twenty you touch your opposite hands tierney so it's like marching in place but you're crossing your midnight right and if a child can't do that themselves like with asker when i was first teaching him i leaned him up against the wall and then i motored him through it and by the third day he's like oh no mom i can do it myself and he's standing by itself in history but he did it and you know very proud of that and sometimes when you model this crossing some kids can't cross the midline their brains are wired properly so they'll do the same side and with those kids you can either like put a dot and there he end and then on their opposite knee so they can see you know patiently you know match the colors or you can hold their hands and motor on through it in one little guy that i worked with he was number self contained classroom i don't i don't really know what his diagnosis was honestly but he had some issues and he would you know he would do that we call the public crop where he did the same side instead of the crossing so with him i like look at that he did it all by himself and he was so proud and his speech therapist at school said now that he can cross midnight on his own he is making such great gains and everything his just as processing as he can handle so tova neuro sensory motor reflex integration wow i told you so we call him in our i for short but she created this wonderful chart which i think is so helpful for parents this is called tree for thought so it represents the brain so here's your cerebral cortex where your complex up presses are the middle of your brain is where your motional processing is and your long term short term memory and then the lower back part of your brain that's your survival brain that's where your reflexes are regulated and automatic function occurs so that the truth is if you don't have near reflexes integrated in your senses integrate have sensory integration issues then doing their piece that integrate the cortex are not going to be as helpful if you don't have the foundation in place so this chart which i'm going to share with you that you can share with everybody is invaluable again for parents because it lists what therapies what modalities work with which part of the brain so if you've got a child on spectrum you're gone you're going to want to address reflex integration and emotional regulation get those in place and then that will make other therapies that are at the higher level like we have a b a in play therapy are way up here wow wow that's really there more foundational exercises and programs and so again i think they help fill in to make a strong foundation so that whatever you're doing up with the cortex is going to be more successful i love that  was connecting with the met an emotional level in order to be able to address the common part which you know i knew that eventually but first it's like i'm pain somebody to play with my child so being i asked for vision i think x for integrating exercises dot com brain gym you can probably know where you could find articles on line you can probably find videos online and you to show up better and more comfortably in life i didn't talk to a speech therapist who worked with my son in school went down to florida to visit a school where they did a lot of range when it was a school for kids with autism but they integrate it was a regular school with a lot of kids about and they integrated them into the classroom and the specious and i had a hard time picking out who was on spectrum and who wasn't because they did brain gym so often that these kids just they are they just blended together and so brain to mandela visits can both really help with emotional regulation so they can kids who are anxious it helps kids focus who have trouble focusing and again some kids are going to be more drawn to one program than another which is why it's going to have a bunch of tools in your tool box but they really are i would say they're good for anybody with stress and anybody with a brain  if you're in either of those two groups and the other good thing is it's going to prepare to because we obviously need to take care of ourselves and yet if we have a kid with a challenge we can not to take care of ourselves so that's the other secret weapon i think of brain damage the parents are in child they're doing it together number one it's benefiting the parents nervous system and it also helps them connect emotionally because it's something they do together as opposed to this is a therapy and you have  so today i asked jane lan i have a question for my mother who has a seventeen year old son who is struggling with some social issues social skills issues we all know how that is so let's let's see what her question is laura says i have a seventeen year old son with asperger's he doesn't like to hang out with friends what can i do to encourage him to be more social some of his favorite activities are actually cooking i appreciate your help well thank you for giving me that that information about his favorite activities because one of the things i was going to suggest is going and finding out what your child is highly motivated to do that is the key for any of us to do something different to stretch outside our for our comfort zone or to do something we haven't done before and you know that if you you're being asked to do something new and different and you're really excited about it you're more likely to do it and to learn from it so find the same with your child and your son likes cooking he doesn't like to hang out with friends so i would find a recipe that your son really likes is it cookies is it cooking a hamburger or what kind of cooking does he like i'm guessing it's probably something where you get his hands busy in moving like a arre on cookies or something like that whatever it is get the ingredients get him to participate in the us and invite a friend over do you have someone in the neighborhood or someone that he's kind of close with or that is really flexible with him and his needs invite that person over to cook most people like it especially if they're not doing it in their own kitchen right most people like to go to someone else's house and cook something and then they can eat it so that is what i would suggest that you do looking at your child motivations like you've already done in creating an activity around that inviting someone in who your child is already really comfortable with so that then there that already that understanding in that friendship and then they can build on it by doing that activity together cooking is a great way to learn and to get better at taking turns at h fun and you're tasting things and kind of laughing as you're doing it looking at the numbers obviously because you're measuring you're putting it you're using the oven at the right temperature etc and then you have the output which is the cookie that you or the the food that they can eat together so i hope that's been helpful for you and that you were able to come up with some fun cooking opportunities for your son and his friends and for those of you who would like to ask me a question and i would love for you to send me an e mail and i'll read it on air and give you some of my best tips and tricks on things that would have worked really well for me and my son in his journey through autism thank you for joining me today some with land it really is my pleasure to bring to you information and knowledge and resources that i'm discovering around the world and i always look forward to hearing from you as well not only your questions but other resources that you find interesting so please feel free to e mail them to me and bring them to the rest of the world through the show i look forward to seeing you next