Autism Street

Home Sweet Homeopathy

In Raising in Arizona: Part One, which was primarily an article about a “team” approach to early intervention, I mentioned the fact that Arizona is only one of three states in the U.S. that licenses homeopaths. I had been meaning to get back to writing about homeopathy sooner, but it just didn’t seem that important. The concept of homeopathy in itself is so scientifically flawed, I had sort of adopted a perspective of “it’s a tax on the deservedly clueless”.

I know that might sound brash, but in reality homeopathy is probably not medically harmful, unless parents are substituting it for effective medical intervention where medical intervention is required. Of course it’s certainly possible that it’s financially and emotionally harmful to those who see it as “promising”, without understanding its pseudoscientific basis.

Why do only three states license homeopaths? I think it probably has more to do with the local homeopathic practitioners attempting to create some semblance of credibility rather than governmental oversight. (Don’t miss that credibility link). After all, how many states license miracle workers, alchemists, or real magicians (not performers)?

And what does homeopathy have to do with autism?

Here’s a suggestion in the section “What To Do Next” near the end of the Autism Research Institute’s (ARI) Advice for Parents of Young Autistic Children document (authored by By James B. Adams, PhD, Stephen M. Edelson, PhD, Temple Grandin, PhD, and Bernard Rimland, PhD). The document appears on the ARI’s website.

Find a local physician, preferably one who is familiar with the Defeat Autism Now! Protocol, and plan out a series of medical tests and treatments. Some physicians will be open to medical testing and biomedical treatments, but others will not – find one who is willing to help your child, as opposed to just monitoring the severity of your child’s problems. Do not take your child to a physician who does not support you or respect your viewpoint.

[Emphasis mine]

Okay, so let’s assume you (dear reader) are a parent with a child that has just been diagnosed as autistic, and you’re (for whatever reason) going to follow the above advice. That apparently means seeking a “DAN! doctor”. Never mind that the series of medical tests could become quite expensive, and that some or many of the tests may be irrelevant, because if they lead to a biomedical treatment plan, that’s good, right?

There’s only one small problem with this. Forget for a minute that aside from a few specific genetic etiologies, that the likely complex genetics and cognitive causes of the vast majority of presentations of autism are not definitively known. How many biomedical treatments are known produce anything resembling a “cure” or “treatment” for autism? Zero. That’s right, there are currently exactly zero biomedical treatments scientifically proven (through replicated, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials) that have been shown to do anything remotely resembling “treating” autism itself.

So who are these “DAN! doctors” that you’d seek in Arizona? Who are these great potential bringers of scientific testing and “treatments” (treatments that according to peer-reviewed medical literature indexed on PubMed don’t really appear to be proven to do anything for autism at all)?

Here’s a little bit of information from ASU Professor, Jim Adams in a recent flyer advertising for the 2006 Zoo Walk “Fundraiser For Autism Research” in which Adams describes ARI and DAN!

Training Doctors in Practical Biomedical Treatments ARI holds special training sessions for doctors and nurses 2x/year at the DAN! Conferences – this is the only national group that trains physicians on practical biomedical treatments for autism! DAN!-trained doctors in Arizona include Drs. Cindy Schneider, Raun Melmed, Sanford Newmark, Martha Grout, Matthew Baral, Warren Tripp, Abram Ber, Alan Ketover, Paul Charnetsky, Warren Levin, and more.

So ARI holds special training sessions for doctors and nurses 2x/year at the DAN! Conferences? Well, not exactly for doctors and nurses as might be inferred by some. It really depends on how one defines “doctors” and “nurses”. In fact, here’s what the ARI website has to say about who’s actually being trained.

Note that some health care practitioners listed below are not physicians, and therefore are not able to provide some of the DAN! diagnostic and treatment options.

The partial list of Arizona DAN!-trained “doctors” given on this Zoo Walk flyer differs slightly from the ARI’s Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) Physician Referral list, which can be viewed at the ARI website.

If one combines both lists, there appears to be a grand total of about 13 DAN!-trained “doctors” in Arizona. Wait a minute, is this an “uh-oh” waiting to happen? 8 of the 13 DAN!-trained “doctors” are licensed homeopaths or naturopaths? Note: apparently homeopathy is often included in the scope of practice of many naturopaths.

Matthew Baral - Licensed Naturopath
Abram Ber - Licensed Homeopath
Martha M. Grout - Licensed Homeopath
Cheryl Harter - Licensed Homeopath
Alan K. Ketover - Licensed Homeopath
Warren Levin - Licensed Homeopath
Geoffrey P. Radoff - Licensed Homeopath
Maureen Schwehr - Licensed Naturopath

Yep, apparently it’s 8 out of 13. If you were to draw names out of a hat to choose a “DAN! doctor” in Arizona, there’s apparently a greater than 60% chance you’d be taking your child to see a naturopath or homeopath.

Note: Some of the licensed homeopaths/naturopaths may also be licensed MD’s or hold other healthcare licenses/certifications in Arizona.

Note: Abram Ber is listed as an M.D. on the ARI Physician Referral List, and in fact apparently was licensed in Arizona back in 1977, but according to the Arizona Medical Board website, his license looks like it expired in 1982 and was not renewed.

When I first saw these lists, I thought that this doesn’t appear to be a symbiotic affiliation for the homeopaths/naturopaths and ARI/DAN! It could appear to many that such practitioners are affiliated with DAN! simply for the advertising - perhaps parents of autistic children desperate for “cure” or “treatment” and their money are easily parted.

Of course I realized that I could be wrong. Perhaps it’s possible that ARI/DAN! will willingly list as many practitioners who will sign up and pledge their faith  as possible.  And they do apparently pledge their faith.

Regrettably, some parents have reported to us that certain DAN!-listed practitioners they contacted were in fact not truly sympathetic to the DAN! approach, despite their having requested to be on our DAN! referral list. In response to this problem, in July 2002 ARI requested all those on the DAN! practitioners list to sign a statement asserting that they subscribe to the DAN! philosophy, and conduct their practice in accordance with the DAN! philosophy.  

Hmm, conduct their practice in accordance with the DAN! philosophy? Whatever happened to best evidence-based practices? Signing up as many practitioners as possible, regardless of the actual scientific foundation of the particular styles of “medicine” they practice, may make it easier for believers in DAN! promoted hypotheses to make the argumentum ad numerum and argumentum ad populum to people who are easily influenced by such things - but everyone knows what a skeptic is going to say about those.

In case you happen to be a reader who is visiting this mostly skeptical blog and you don’t know what traditional homeopathy really is, here is a link to a brief yet excellent summary available at homeowatch.org that describes some core concepts like homeopathy’s Law of Similars and Law of Infinitesimals. There’s plenty of good reading at JREF, The Bad Homeopath, and numerous skeptical bloggers like Skeptico and Confessions of a Quackbuster, and even scientific studies indexed at PubMed.

Many of you may already know David Andrews, he’s a fairly frequent visitor and contributor to the conversation on many blogs that can be found at Autism-Hub. Even though I only know him via the internet (he’s in Finland), David is a pretty cool guy. We’ve exchanged a couple of e-mails on occasion (outside of blog conversation) and he’s quite thoughtful, despite what’s probably a busy schedule while he wraps up his Master’s degree - I think he’s pretty well set to graduate this coming December.

You know what else? He’s a he’s a songwriter/musician too - and he has a great music video.

Please take just a few minutes to watch and listen. I think you’ll enjoy this. From the awesome overlay animation (by Paul Bourgeois), and clean, twinkling lead guitar (by Finnish guitarist Tuomo Borman) to the vocals and all other instrumentals by David himself.

There’s more where this came from. If your interested in videos featuring autistic people - from family home videos to artistic expression like David’s, make sure not to miss Dinah Murray’s Posautive YouTube group. 

http://www.youtube.com/group/posautive

3 of my favorite inventions that happen to be great with a house full of kids

Music

Music may not necessarily be an invention (it’s certainly occurred in nature, long before homo sapiens), but to have become part of human culture as a means of communication, entertainment, and artistic expression, etc. is something I really like.

I’ve always been fascinated by the distinct mathematical aspects. As an example, the strings on a modern acoustic guitar vibrate at a specific audible frequency. The lowest note (E) in the common tuning, occurs on the open first string at 82.4 Hz. Playing the same string after depressing it at the 12th fret (which effectively changes the length of the string to one half of its original length), produces the (E) one octave up the scale, and happens to be exactly 164.8 Hz (twice the frequency of the original note). While this one example is a brief oversimplification, the mathematics of music, the specific notes and combinations of notes (chords, chord progressions, etc.), and what is determined to be pleasing (which can vary by culture) in terms of sound interpretation by the brain, is fascinating.

But music is more than an elegant expression of mathematics to me too. Playing even a simple 3-chord song on the guitar for my kids can have the effect of creating instant interest and attention. Of course this isn’t every time, but it seems more often than not. Depending on the circumstances, the children are often inspired to move with the music, and can even present great teaching opportunities - teaching the concepts of “stop” and “go” seems natural when paired with music that stops and starts at the right time. Occasionally, a simple guitar song can relax a child getting ready for bed or one who just happens to be cranky.

On top of the obvious, sounds from the guitar, piano, or harmonica, sure seem to bring about an instant desire to participate/create from both my autistic and neurotypical children. It’s hard to bring out a musical instrument and have the children resist touching it; it’s more like grabby-gimme time. They want to touch and feel while the guitar is producing sound, and usually want to experiment with it themselves. The grins of a child who created “the sounds” themselves are pretty hard to miss, autistic or neurotypical. It must be empowering to some degree, to be the “maker of the sounds”, and it doesn’t matter if those sounds are quite random.

For anyone interested: you can pick up a decent quality, smaller, used classical guitar (nylon strings) at a garage sale or pawn shop for about 50 bucks if you know where to look. Learn a few simple chords and you can play many children’s songs with less difficulty than you might think. 

The Double Stroller

I have always been a fan of having good tools. I don’t mean expensive. I mean the right tools for any given application, and tools of good quality. There’s something satisfying about getting something done in the least amount of time, with the least amount of wasted effort and expense.

The modern folding double strollers are an excellent example in my book. With one child seated behind the other, they are narrow enough to navigate just about anywhere a single stroller can easily go. Granted, there is a longer wheelbase and larger turning radius, but it’s not that much. These strollers also fold up easily into about one third of their deployed size.

The thing that’s so great about these strollers when you have several kids, is that there is always room for two: the two most tired, or one asleep (the seatbacks recline on many of these) and one too little to walk the distance that needs to be covered, as quickly as the other kids. It’s not only good to be out walking and saving on gas by not driving to a couple of different bus stops, it’s actually faster and easier than hassling with car seats.

Cargo Pockets

I have never carried a wallet. Not that I would have anything to put in it even if I did, I just never saw the need. I tried it a couple of times (years ago) but found it uncomfortable to have a lump in my back pocket, or a big flat square in a front pocket.

I have long since appreciated and preferred cargo pockets, although I still don’t carry a wallet. They have room to comfortably carry just about anything I might need during a small outing with the kids - a cell phone, keys, driver’s license on one side, and a couple of small pouches of snacks, Kleenex, and maybe even a beverage on the other.

I don’t know by whom or when these were invented, but in my opinion, they exemplify functionality and comfort. I’m sure it sounds somewhat silly, but I don’t think my kids see it that way when I can pull out something they need (like pulling a rabbit out of a hat), or when I always have a place to carry something home safely (like a small toy or hot wheel car they lost interest in, that might otherwise get misplaced).
 

What does any of this have to do with autism?

Nothing, and that’s the point. Being a parent is easier for me with certain tools - no versions for autistic children required.
 

The 43rd Meeting of The Skeptics’ Circle is up at Adventures in Ethics and Science.

This edition has gone to the dogs.

Welcome to the meeting of the 43rd Skeptics’ Circle! Good logic and critical thinking never hurt anyone, but bad logic, gullibility, and uncritical acceptance of questionable claims causes distress to small, furry animals.

This one should make the Bronze Dog happy (the compiler of a great skeptical collection of Doggerels).

Despite being extremely busy lately (I know, who isn’t if you have school-aged children?), I still manage to do quite a bit of reading - mostly blogs. There’s been a lot of great stuff out there the past week or two, and I won’t bore readers with a spill of the highlights. Anyone can find a wealth of great reading by visiting blogs featured on the Autism-Hub, and reading the past couple of posts at each site.

More to the point of having school-aged children, however, I want to point out one piece of writing that I considered excellent. Being a skeptic, I really enjoy pieces that provoke thought - whether they challenge me to consider new things that hadn’t previously been something familiar to me, or whether they challenge me to reconsider what I thought I knew from a fresh perspective or with new facts.

An essay “Being the Class Project: Reflections upon False Inclusion” by Andrea, over at the Andrea’s Buzzing About blog, is just such a thought-provoking piece - a more than worthy read.

It not only provides an insider take on being on the outside,

Unfortunately, caring for was not the same thing as caring about.  If I complained to the teacher about being put into awkward situations from being pushed into playgroups where neither I nor the children wanted my presence, my concerns and discomfort were dismissed. “You should thank them for doing that for you,” the teacher told me, “They’re letting you play with them.  You should appreciate that.”  But when I played with them, I was made fun of for my inability to do things the right way.  I could not understand why I should express thanks to others for the opportunity to be ridiculed.

It also offers introspection/reflection that’s clear.

Their attempts to normalize me repeatedly failed, and I bore the given responsibility for that failure.  It was my fault that I had problems; I just needed to “try harder” to fit in and be a fully functioning member of the scholastic social scene.  The hidden promise was that if I managed to overcome whatever obstacles were in my path, I would be accepted.  However, the true obstacles I had to overcome were not intrinsic, but due to the others’ lack of acceptance of me as myself.

I may need to rethink/clarify some of my own parenting strategies. As suggested by a commenter following the essay, this article should be in wider circulation - a publication read by elementary school teachers and parents might be a good spot for this.

Please read “Being the Class Project: Reflections upon False Inclusion“.