Dr. Mercola Reviews Envisioning a Bright Future: Interventions that Work for Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders
We are in the midst of an autism epidemic. When I finished medical school over 25 years ago, the incidence of autism was over one in 100,000. Now it has conservatively climbed to 1 in 150, and some experts believe that if you consider the full range of autism spectrum disorder the incidence may be as high as one in 10.
It used to be that pregnant moms most feared Down syndrome, but now that fear has been replaced from having a child born with autism.
I have personally treated many hundreds of children with autism and have seen firsthand the trauma that this disorder can introduce into a family. It just tears my heart apart to see what it does. In many ways autistic children are the canaries of our society and heralding what the future of our culture will likely encounter if we don’t pay attention to the causes of this disorder.
Fortunately there are some simple strategies that can be used for autism that can have quite a profound benefit. I have been inspired to collaborate with some of the leading experts in autism and participate in a think tank that will provide basic resources for those afflicted with autism.
One of the problems of seeking alternative strategies for autism, or any disease for that matter, is there is quite a bit of material to sort through.
In the coming months I will be bringing you the results of this collaboration, but I recently ran across a comprehensive resource that can provide some immediate benefit to anyone who is dealing with the challenge of this disorder.
The comprehensive resource that I want to share with you is a book called Envisioning a Bright Future: Interventions that Work for Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder by Patricia S. Lemer.
The book is over 400 pages, and is appropriate for parents searching for the appropriate intervention for their child, as well as professionals who are seeking to develop a grasp of the available options out there. Envisioning a Bright Future has 17 chapters and 20 contributing authors including three by my mentors in this area, Dr. Deitrich Klinghardt, Dr. Anju Usman, and Barbara Loe Fischer.
The book explores the wide range of different treatment options available to assist those struggling with this challenge such as visual- and sound-based treatments, the connections of vaccines to autism, homeopathy, EEG neurofeedback, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), educational kinesiology, and using animals to heal autism.
Envisioning a Bright Future is a useful encyclopedic resource that provides a basic understanding of what has been done to date, and will help you navigate the different options that are out there. In the near future I hope to post articles to supplement this material as the field is rapidly evolving.