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A Message from Laura
Hello everyone,
I hope everyone had a wonderful end to your summer and have made a seamless transition back to the grind. For everyone on the east cost, I hope Irene wasn't too cruel to you.
We are officially an approved related service provider for speech and counseling! If you have an RSA, please contact us to set up therapy sessions.
This month's article outlines the importance of getting to the root of autism and other neuro-developmental disabilities through nutritional approaches. I became very intrigued with the whole concept of the gut-brain connection when my own son in his first 2 months of life had a terrible time with digestion; spit up, diarrhea, constipation. He was a very fussy baby as he was in pain. Once we took him off dairy and began giving him probiotics, we saw a new child. He was happier, he slept and he pooped!
I truly believe that the removal of dairy, for him, changed the course of his life. Maybe it wouldn't have been anything too serious, but maybe it would have. I thank my now, pediatrician Dr. Gabriel of the PATH family center for being innovative and believing that food should heal us. Please visit the PATH family center's website, listed below to learn about their services and donate to their upcoming fundraiser!
All the best,
Laura Hynes . |
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Upcoming Events
Introduction to RDI; group sessions Not sure if RDI is right for you? Join us for a an introduction to the program in a group setting. You will learn about autism, how RDI addresses the core deificits in autism as well as walking away with some concrete strategies designed for your specific child that will improve your child's ability to manage real world situations. This is a great way for parents to get their feet wet without making any long term or financial commitment. Please contact us for more information. |
Check This Out!
PATH FAMILY CENTER
PATH Family Center is a clinical center in Staten Island that offers integrative and nutritional interventions for individuals diagnosed with Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Food Allergies and other related conditions. Our doctor, nurse, nutritionist & special educator comprise a team whose goal it is to restore total body balance in the individual.
We discover the underlying problems through a series of lab tests. The team then creates a custom nutritional protocol with diet plans and integrative guides that begin the process of recovery, as well as offering educational guidance. We also offer Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy which is used for a variety of illnesses, including Lyme Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Traumatic Brain Injuries, Cerebral Palsy, Autism and many more.
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For thousands of years, medicine was practiced based on the beliefs and teachings of the ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates. His words are still, to this day, included in our medical professional's Hippocratic oath, "First do no harm."
What Hippocrates also said, that seems to have been lost in our current society was, "Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food." We respect his knowledge enough to name a doctor's ethical oath of practice after him, yet his practice if "medicine" is now considered, "alternative."
Our society as a whole does not recognize the value of food and nutrition as a factor for long term health and quality of life. Although, it is becoming more widely accepted to use nutritional approaches to treat underlying medical conditions in autism, it is still considered alternative and not widely accepted in the medical community.
There is mounting and undeniable evidence now that shows a great percentage of children with autism suffer from gastrointestinal issues. The numbers stated in the research range from half to 80% of this population are sick. It is well known in the medical community that digestion is responsible for providing us with fuel from our food, which provides us what we need to grow, develop, reproduce, heal and function. It also plays a critical role in our immune and nervous system, which effects cognition and overall development. Pretty much everything that makes us alive has roots in digestion.
If you read the research and listen to the parents who have gone through biomedical interventions, you will read and hear that detoxification and proactive nutritional approaches are extremely effective in improving autism. But what does that really mean?
Many people describe it as the lifting of a fog, more available, more present, more communicative. Understand that if these children were unavailable in this way, they were unavailable to learn through the relationship with their parents. The fog has lifted, but there are potentially, years of opportunities lost. This is where a developmental approach such as RDI becomes so valuable. Traditional behavioral therapies take the approach of teaching behaviors to compensate for the lack of learning that went on during the fog. What RDI does is go back and look at what developmental milestones were missed during the fog and reteaches them.
From a medical standpoint, doctor's should be evaluating all children with autism for GI issues and emphasizing the importance of good food and nutrition. It is also so important to take GI issues in infants and young children very seriously. By treating the problem instead of just symptoms we can potentially change the course of a child's life.
Unfortunately we live in a society that wants a quick fix. Change a behavior; quick fix. Treat a symptom with a pill; quick fix. To get to the root of the problem, we have to shift our thinking in autism from behavior and medication to development and nutrition.
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Extraordinary Minds is dedicated to providing quality, individualized, family based interventions to address the deficits in autism and other developmental disabilities.
Extraordinary Minds
308 Forest Avenue
Staten Island, New York 10301
(347) 564-8451
L.Hynes@yahoo.com
www.extraordinaryminds.org |
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