Posted on 09/07/2022 2:33:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Meghan Puglia, a neurologist at the University of Virginia, is working to detect autism in babies much earlier. Her goal is to help children with autism achieve optimal outcomes through earlier diagnosis.
“We know early intervention is the strongest predictor of optimal outcomes for kids with autism,” Puglia said.
Right now, she says the earliest age that autism can be diagnosed is at 18 months.
“All babies, before they leave the hospital, get a hearing screening and metabolic tests. There is no screening for autism until the baby is toddling around and starting to talk,” Puglia said.
Each week, Puglia meets several babies just a few weeks old. In her lab, they are contributing to help the next generation of babies.
“All of our babies that come into the lab were this tiny little stretchy swim cap, essentially, with little sensors that are embedded in it. This cap is our EEG system, or electroencephalography,” Puglia said.
The cap, made up of 32 sensors, measures the neurological activity of the brain. Puglia is using the cap to look for markers in the brain that denote autism.
“We’re really interested in looking at the variability in the way the brain is responding over time. You might think too much variability might be a bad thing, but actually there is a sweet spot is what we’re finding,” Puglia said.
She’s working to create new social development growth charts from the information she gathers. This will then help other children, too.
The session starts with a spit sample from the baby. Then the child gets adjusted to the environment with their mother. Next, the cap is put o and the gentle tests begin. Puglia and her teammates play different noises, create various senses, to see how the babies react.
Puglia says most of the children coming in are just a few weeks old but she understands not all parents can make that happen. She’ll see children at four months, too. The study is ongoing and the babies will continue to come in until they are 16 months of age so Puglia can see how they’ve progressed.
“We also have a sister study that we’re doing in the UVA Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the NICU, and that one is looking at babies who are born preterm,” Puglia said.
If the study is a success and the test works, the goal is to have all babies go through it, so there can be a better idea of which babies need a little help early on. It would be a supplement to the other tests newborns go through before they leave the hospital.
“We’re hoping to intervene even earlier and identify which babies would benefit from a diagnosis and additional care, that is the ultimate goal,” Puglia said.
Puglia says if they can catch autism at an earlier age, it will be easier for children to go into therapies ad get the help they need. While doing this study, she can already help analyze the way babies’ minds work at such a young age.
Puglia says she is about to see her 100th baby in the past year. She is still taking more for her study. If you are interested in having your child involved in the research you can go here and reach out.
Many excellent surgeon s and scientists are autism spectrum.
I know an ER physician that is Asperger’s. He is absolutely fabulous. He can have an ER room full of screaming injured children and still keep his focus.
The greatest difficulty is that they learn in early elementary school different than other young children. I worked with an 8 year old girl that had Autism. She flunked kindergarten three times as she could not learn her words. I developed a different teaching method for her and it greatly accelerated her learning.
In logical thought processing they surpass most children.
Best preventative is to make your baby laugh as soon as possible, and as much as possible. We used to know that.
Throw them up in the air amd catch them. Does it every time. That’s what dads do naturally, if some nitwit doesn’t prevent them.
I’m convinced that for most autism cases, it really is that simple.
You are correct. The talents and abilities are there, but there are also glitches. And the glitches don’t make sense. I advance placed all my math in college so I took engineering calculus as an elective for a fun course -— but I can’t remember names unless I can “read” them off a name tag I have previously seen. Quite embarrassing sometimes.
My early teachers simply sent me to the library and told me to read all the books. I am a bit of an information sponge so I enjoyed this immensely.
Per your link
“male to female ratio of 3:1.”
The genetic theory is primarily due to the higher correlation in monozygotic twins vs dizygotic twins.
Hold off on most vaccines
However the chickensoup way to determine a newborn cognitive intactness is to hold an alert newborn 8 to 8 inches from your eyes.
The baby will innately follow your hairline to find your eyes.
When the baby looks at your face stick your tongue out.
It may take several times to get the baby’s attention on the tongue.
Once the baby has focused on the tongue continue to wiggle tongue and poke it in and out.
Baby will often wiggle and will begin moving his own tongue. Within a session or two the baby will stick its tongue out with you.
Often the baby will start sticking its tongue out when you lift him, not to indicate feed but as a recognition of your thing to do.
Very cool
And allows baby to use the one muscle he has control over. Shows that eyes and primitive cognition are intact.
But we are going to have to define what we are actually looking for to start on any sort of search for answers.
Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication.
Say what?
Using this my youngest niece who had a speech problem was "on the autism spectrum" along with the kid who bangs his head on the wall while screaming, the kid who is really good with spatial relationships but tells you that you are really fat and the child who shy and withdrawn. They are do not all have the same problem. But they are lumping them in together.
And the "experts" have come up with so many weird ways to screw kids up and confused new parents, lacking the backing of grandparents and other extend family to tell them to calm down the baby is fine, that I just can not see this as something that will have a good outcome.
The logical masculine consciousness recalls memory based upon location of the stored memory while the emotional feminine consciousness recalls based upon emotional indexing and attachment.
This generally changes around age 7 or 8, roughly 3rd grade when they start long division and multiplication.
Autistic children are very good at the match game where you must find pairs of cards based upon remembering locations of previous cards observed.
I reversed it in one man age 73 and it surprised the heck out of me and his wife.
That's a very interesting concept.
It reminded me of the scene in the Torah where Ishmael was caught mocking Isaac, which caused Sarah to demand that the bondwoman and her son get the boot post haste.
For a long while I've considered that perhaps Isaac ("he will laugh") was a very happy, bubbly baby, but Ishmael (who was old enough to know better) mocked sweet little Isaac, even or especially about his name ("mocking" coming from the same verb).
Every time Isaac giggled. Ishmael mocking, running Isaac's happy name into the ground..
Which would have taught Isaac not to laugh.
Well I don't know, but it would explain why Sarah saw a big red flag. Where was Hagar in all that? Snickering on the sidelines?
There's always a simple, real world explanation for everything.
It is NOT fake, and not a “disease.” What do you think it is?
This is similar to a technique developed by the Swiss psychologist Piaget to determine intelligence level in babies.
If I recall correctly, it was called habituation, a process where a child develops disinterest due to the successive stimulation.
I experimented with it about 30 years ago and was surprised it worked.
Detecting before or after vaccinations?
There is a book I read many years ago by a Harvard Psychiatrist on split brain theory that is fabulous. I think his name was Paul Schiffer or Shiffer and the book was “Tale of Two Minds.
It’s been many years. But it’s close to that.
The book would help you understand your brain and why names are difficult for you. A friend of mine went to college with Bill Clinton and claimed Bill never forgot a person’s name. His eyesight must have been poor to marry the Hildabeast!
The book is about research relating to optic nerve stimulation techniques based upon using safety glasses with portions of the lens being blocked with felt to limit visual input.
I was close. The book is
Fredric Schiffer
OF TWO MINDS: THE REVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE OF DUAL-BRAIN PSYCHOLOGY
Well, seems to me that one of the main symptoms of autism is when a kid doesn’t laugh.
So make them laugh.
And fathers know this instinctively, much more than mothers.
Good dads go out of their way to make the kid laugh immediately, the first time he meets him/her. And will pick up a kid, toss them in the air. Absolutely makes a kid laugh, again and again.
Mothers do not do that. Make them smile, yes, maybe, but not belly laugh.
The 3:1 ratio is also due to females not presenting with exactly the same characteristics as male. They used to say it was 9:1. And, it is a spectrum.
I am 100% female, but I am a logical creature -— not very emotional at all. Most people don’t notice my differences until they really get to know me.
From a previous essay:
In the 10% (# of F:M Aspies) of the .5% (# Aspie:NT) of the .001% (# w/165 IQ) of the 1% (# F ENTJ’s), and a world population of 6910615332 [05:59 UTC (EST+5) Apr 07, 2011] you would expect to find .3455 (yes, point 3455) individuals in the world population with ALL of the above “minority” traits. I’m sure glad God rounded up to ONE!!!
I knew something was wrong with my son when he was two weeks old. The world made no sense to him, it’s hard to explain what I picked up on. Eye movement? If we went around the dresser, there was no continuity in his perception of it being the same object. How is the world supposed to make sense to a two week old? It didn’t.
Regression should be a cause for concern, like going back in babbling, losing consonants.
Loss of eye contact. Not repeating a new action, like rolling over at 3 months on schedule, and not doing it again for another 3 months. Obsessive fascination with anything to the exclusion of human interaction. My son couldn’t turn his head to the side if you put him on his tummy, he would drop his face into the mattress. No rapid eye movement while sleeping. So much before one year, before six months, before three months.
What is wrong with you, calling people names for the way they were born? Insult people for what they choose, not what they don’t choose?
Right now they’re victims.
Perhaps tomorrow they’ll go back to being hero’s…………
The higher the better! :)
The other thing I meant to mention is that if Isaac were mocked about his name, he wouldn't have just learned not to laugh. He would have learned to despise his name, his very identity.
It's only my thoughts, but I have personal reasons for thinking of that scenario in the first place.
And this all ties in with "laughter is the best medicine." The cure before the disease, so to speak.
Thanks again for bringing this back to mind.
(More at link. I know...how many Med students aspire to be Coprologists!)
Research confirms Gut-Brain link in Autism
...Snip "The Gut-Brain Connection in Autism (Multiple possible sources listed with this being one.)
"As mentioned, recent research confirms and further strengthens the theory that the gut plays an important role in the development of ASD (autism spectrum disorder). According to this study,8,9 published in the journal Autism Research:
"People with autism commonly experience gastrointestinal problems, however the cause is unknown. We report gut symptoms in patients with the autism‐associated R451C mutation encoding the neuroligin‐3 protein. We show that many of the genes implicated in autism are expressed in mouse gut.
The neuroligin 3 R451C mutation alters the enteric nervous system, causes gastrointestinal dysfunction, and disrupts gut microbe populations in mice. Gut dysfunction in autism could be due to mutations that affect neuronal communication."
In other words, genetic mutations found in both the gut and the brain may be a primary culprit. Mutation in the neuroligin‐3 R451C has previously been shown to alter synaptic function in the hippocampus and cortex, resulting in impaired social behavior.10"
Other research11 has shown neuroligin-3 mutations can also trigger "specialized cognitive abilities" seen in some autistic children. Previous research has also linked the mutation to gut dysfunction. Lead investigator Elisa Hill-Yardin, associate professor at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, told Neuroscience News:13
"We know the brain and gut share many of the same neurons and now for the first time we've confirmed that they also share autism-related gene mutations. Up to 90% of people with autism suffer from gut issues, which can have a significant impact on daily life for them and their families.
Our findings suggest these gastrointestinal problems may stem from the same mutations in genes that are responsible for brain and behavioral issues in autism. It's a whole new way of thinking about it — for clinicians, families and researchers — and it broadens our horizons in the search for treatments to improve the quality of life for people with autism."
...snip....
"Gut Differences Found in Healthy and Autistic Children
Even without a genetic component, the gut microbiome appears to play an important role in ASD. In a 2013 PLOS ONE study,15 researchers analyzed the microbial content of fecal samples from 20 healthy and 20 autistic children, finding distinct differences between the two groups. As reported by Medical News Today:16
"Specifically, three bacterial genera — Prevotella, Coprococcus, and Veillonellaceae — were diminished in subjects with autism, when compared with samples from normal children … The three genera represent important groups of carbohydrate-degrading and/or fermenting microbes.
Such bacteria could be critical for healthy microbial-gut interactions or play a supportive role for a wide network of different microorganisms in the gut. The latter would explain the decreased diversity observed in autistic samples."
snip....
Campbell-McBride's research shows there's a profound dynamic interaction between your gut, brain and immune system. She has developed what might be one of the most profoundly important treatment strategies for preventing autism.
In her research, Campbell-McBride discovered that nearly all of the mothers of autistic children have abnormal gut flora, which is significant because newborns inherit their gut flora from their mothers at the time of birth. Establishing normal gut flora in the first 20 days or so of life plays a crucial role in the maturation of your baby's immune system.
Babies who develop abnormal gut flora are left with compromised immune systems, putting them at higher risk for suffering vaccine reactions. If your baby has suboptimal gut flora, vaccines can become the proverbial "last straw" — the trigger that "primes" his/her immune system to develop chronic health problems.
Simple Lab Tests Can Identify GAPS
The good news is you can rather inexpensively identify GAPS within the first weeks of your baby's life, which can help you make better-informed decisions about vaccinations, and about how to proceed to set your child on the path to health.
The entire process for identifying children who would be at risk for developing autism from a vaccine is described in her book "Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression, Schizophrenia," but to sum it up, in her practice she starts out by collecting a complete health history of the parents, and their gut health is assessed.
Then, within the first few days of life, the stool of the child is analyzed to determine the state of the baby's gut flora, followed by a urine test to check for metabolites. Together, this can give you a picture of the state of your child's immune system. These tests are available in most laboratories around the world.
If the test results are normal, the risk of autism after vaccination is significantly reduced. If you find that your baby has abnormal microflora, or begins to develop symptoms of autism, the GAPS program should be started immediately, as the younger the child is when you start the treatment, the better the results. The child also should not be given any vaccines until their gut microbiome tests normal.
Identifying Abnormal Gut Flora Early On Is Crucial
Campbell-McBride reversed her own son's autism using dietary changes and detoxification, and her hypothesis is in my view one of the most relevant. I believe her GAPS nutritional protocol is important for most people these days, as a majority have poor gut health due to poor diet and toxic exposures, but it's particularly crucial for pregnant women and young children.
The best way to prevent GAPS in the first place is for the mother to avoid all processed foods, sugar, antibiotics and birth control pills before conception as these cause yeast and fungi to grow and also cause leaky gut. This can then be followed by breastfeeding and avoiding the use of antibiotics during (intrapartum) and after delivery." ...Snip
1)Vaccine Crowd; Note The doctor is not against vaccine
2) Test if you want, but my thought would be to just provide a pro biotic to every newborn child.
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