Where do I start? Hello, I have made an appt with the Thoughtful House for Children in Austin for Feb 5. We went to our dev. pedi today to get our "official" diagnosis and our report. I talked to her about both DAN! and homeopathy and she said that she feels they are both very expensive for very little benefit. She definitely recommended ABA, but that was it. My question is, what do you feel has benefited your child most? DAN!? Homeopathy? GFCF or SCD? I just want to know where you would start and what you have seen the most benefit from. DS already goes to a public preschool program that uses the STAR program that is ABA based. He is there 8:30-2:30 daily. He also recieves ST and OT through school. He does hippo therapy and ST privately 1X/wk. Thanks! Our biggest wows have been from the GFCFSF diet (for us, no gluten, casein, soy, yeast, and very little sugar), omega 3 supplementation (coromega), nystatin to combat yeast, and enhansa to combat everything else.  Traditional therapies are helping too, but we've never done ABA, just speech, OT, PT, and Theraputic Listening.  To get started with the diet and DAN, there are a couple of books that can help: Children with Starving Brains by McCandless, and Healing the 4A Disorders by Kenneth Bock.  keep your appt with Thoughtful house but don't be afraid to keep searching for a DAN doctor who charges less, or takes your insurance. They are rare but can be found! For us, MB12 shots were HUGE. Killing yeast and bacteria in the gut caused huge improvements as well. Thanks so much for the responses! I have Children with Starving Brains on its way from Amazon. I will add 4A Disorders to my list. I think I will keep the appt with the Thoughtful House. I just feel in my gut that food allergies are the cause of some of this and I want to heal his gut. I know that everyone's results are different, and we are just going to have to do what we can to figure out what will help him. I am most interested in unlocking his speech. He speaks in 2-3 word phrases but I really want him to be able to express himself. Does anyone have a DAN! doc they like in Dallas? We are going there for our family training in ABA and will go back during spring break, stay for a couple of months in the summer to do ABA there. Very first step for us was taking the Casein out.  Getting used to dietary adjustments can be difficult.  For us, first was Casein, then Gluten...then priobiotics...then enzymes.  Along the way you'll learn little tricks here and there.  For example, now use better cleaners in the house, use epsom salt for baths, activated charcoal for constipation, etc.  But take one step at a time. And a small tip, keep a journal.  Cuz the constant wondering of whether or not the child is naturally developing or whether or not it's the interventions can be brutal.  If you keep a journal you can quickly begin to see patterns. Good luck. Oh, and as far as therapies go.  My son has pretty severe sensory issues, so we started there with having a sensory diet created for him by an OT.  HUGE - for us.  We also recently started using picture schedules which really help with communication, and routine issues.  I really wish I would've started the picture schedule a looonnng time ago.  We've seen a huge improvement with behaviors because now my son can 'see' what's in his daily schedule and what's coming up in the day.  We also have a BIP (Behaviorial Improvement Plan) created early on by a pedi Pysch.  But to be honest, I think if we would've done the sensory diet and picture schedule first, the BIP would've never been needed.I am not a parent, but I am autistic and my mom thinks that what has worked for me is Relationship Development Intervention.  Homeopathy, MRIs and chelation therapy are a few of the treatments we tried, but they didn't work. Thanks everyone! I will buy some epsom salts at the store today. I have read about the baths more than once. Why is this? Our school OT wrote up a sensory diet for us, also, just last week. We have been doing deep pressure and joint compressions 3X daily and I have seen a great difference just from that! I like the idea of taking out just caesin or gluten, first. I think caesin will be easier for us and plan to start tomorrow. Then I will take out the gluten. Eventually I would like to work our way to the SCD diet.
	Copyright Autism-PDD.net