Introduction:
INDEX:
WEBINAR – Key Topics –
Autism New Research and Interventions
Prevalence of Autism
Five Known Incidences
How the Brain (Synapses) Work
How Autism Affect the Social Brain
Multi-Sensory Integration
Role of Genetics/Vaccinations/Toxins
Research on Fast ForWord as an ASD Intervention
The Economist Article
Demonstration of Fast ForWord
Question and Answers
Click Here to Get the Webinar Transcription and Slides
Link to The Economist articles on Autism discussed on the Webinar
Link to Blog Article on the 4 Key Areas of Research on Autism
HIGHLIGHTS
What are 5 known issues about the brain and what do we understand?
First of all is that autism spectrum disorders are neurodevelopmental disorders
The brain of a child on the autism spectrum is different from the brain of a child who doesn’t fall on the autism spectrum. That doesn’t mean that those children are necessarily in anyway impaired in many aspects of thinking…..
There are also differences in the way the brain of children of spectrum connects to each other. The regions connect to each other. I will show you that data. There is an imbalance in the way that the brain become excited verses the way that they inhabits. So this children tend to be hyper aroused or hypo aroused……
How Autism Affect the Social Brain
So the brain is the same way and when you start seeing one problem or one different then often you just start seeing many others as well and you don’t know which is really the primary issue or how they are sometimes related..
Multi-Sensory Integration
Now we also know the children on the spectrum have trouble with sensory or multisensory integration. OT’s have known this a long time. It’s the key to sensory integration therapy and what they know is that children can’t handle speech and hearing and vision all at the same time the brain becomes overwhelmed by that. So one of the things we are going to talk about when we talk about intervening with this kid is having more structured auditory intervention,
Role of Genetics/Vaccinations/Toxins
Just a little bit about the genetics. Just so you know that some parents think of maybe vaccines led to my child’s autism or some other kinds of issues. There is a movie out right now that was pulled, I think it was on that whole issue with vaccines, but the important thing to understand and if autism is genetic. That doesn’t mean that the child inherits all of the genes………
Question
Please re-explain synaptic plasticity?
Answer
Synaptic plasticity then is the fact the brain is an experience dependent organ. What that means is that unlike your liver, your heart, your kidney your born with them and you got what you are born with. But the human brain is designed to shape itself based on experience and so the term is – experience depended on the organ. So if you are born in Japan your brain is good at Japanese, if you are a musician your brain gets really good at music and it gets better and better the more you do that…………………………..