jen

I believe with some individuals mercury within injections can cause problems. I also believe that some children experience severe side effects from vaccinations. ASD can run in families. I believe the environment and the way we product food can have an effect on our children. Where my child gets his ASD from I do not know. But I believe there can be different causes of ASD. Because the cause are so varible it makes researching the condition more completed. (That is if the is money available for the research) Yes the number of people being diagnosed with ASD is rising but so is the number of people with depression, Bi poplar etc. Jen

maybe an aim for the National Autistic Society should be for them to promote early awareness of ASD symptoms with the medical, nursery and education areas. Jen

You child sounds similiar to mine. The best thing I have ever done is arrange weekly sessions with a sensory OT. The problem is there are not many (if any) of them available on the NHS. If you are lucky your trust will pay for sessions with a private OT. She does a detailed assessment makes recommendations for the school. Helps with writing tools etc. The other thing I have done is got coloured lenses for my son. The problem with these is the child can get called names and than feels uncomfortable wearing the glasses. Having the OT assesssment ensured we had a written assessment diagnosis and recommendations in a report. We than used this information in our statement. Because our child gets sensory overloaded easily he needs times when he needs a break from the classroom. This ensured we got a full time LSA on his statement. Jen

The majority of children are older than five years when diagnosed hence the health visitors are not aware they are diagnosed. If health visitors do not have the experience of working with children who are definately ASD than they only know what they read in literature. Within the literature they read there would not be a great deal written on ASD. How this problem will be overcome I do not know. Within health care it is always a waiting game. If it is a short term problem than the majority of occasions it will go way by reviewing it at a later date. If it is a serious problem than it will still be present when the child is reviewed later. A lot of parents do at some time in their childs life have difficulties with their child and their parenting skills. Raising a child is one of the most difficult things to do. Yet we do not have any training for one of the most important jobs in the world, no wonder we make mistakes. Jen

How can this be down to budetary. The quicker a diagnosis is made the less appointments a child has to attend to find the diagnosis. The NHS, education and DLA are all different budgets so that would not come in to it. Ask a consultant how much it costs for a first or continuing appointment he would not be able to tell you so money does not come into it. The consultant does need evidence from different bodies of people who work with the child. The majority of the diagnosis is made from evidence presented from the childs development, other people who see the child, the parents concerns and from observation. If you have a parent stating there is a problem and a nursery saying there isn't than this will delay the diagnosis. A lot of health visitors or GP would not be able to identify ASD because of the varying difficulties these children present. We were seen by the consultant six times over a period of eight months and than it was two consultants who made the diagnosis of our son when he was five years old. Jen Jen

I thought it was a clear discription of how somethings affect our ASD children. I am going to alter some of it and print it off for my new sons teacher. Should help her with planning etc. Jen

yes they do help with preparing the child for school and getting them ready to learn. It can be simple things like getting them to run upstairs to get there bag. Encouraging them to carry a heavy bag to school. Bouncing a ball. My child is taken out at 10am every morning to do 5 mins of exercises which help with his concentration. These exercises are things like walking and down steps 20 times. Hanging from the climbing frames. Exercises to reduce his sensory overload. Jen

Offsetting their undoubted public health benefits, vaccinations incur the risk of a range of adverse side effects, some of which rarely cause long lasting or even permanent impairment of health. : By the time a baby is 5 months old that baby has been exposed to 18 antigens, 21 antigens by 12 months and 29 antigens by 5 years. The problem is there has been no indepth research on the combinations of vaccines and the reactions they cause. Depending upon the nature of the vaccine, major side effects fall into three categories, as follows Toxic: Killed bacteria may release toxins as their cell bodies break up. An example is pertussis vaccine, which contains at least one substance that can be poisonous to brain cells. When the toxin injures the brain, this occurs anywhere from a few hours to a few days after the vaccination. Infectious: A vaccine that consists of attenuated virus particles may cause the very infection that it was intended to prevent. An example is oral polio vaccine. The infection presents after an incubation period of a number of days during which the virus multiplies. The virus may even remain latent in cells of the body for much longer periods of time, and then cause disease. Autoimmune: The body responds to the vaccine with an immune reaction that attacks its components. Sometimes the immune reaction also attacks a constituent of the body itself, which bears some chemical resemblance to a constituent of the vaccine. Reports of cases in which nerve cells have been attacked have been published for tetanus, influenza and measles vaccines. The "self-attack" is the result of a cascade of biochemical changes which takes at least five days to cause clinically observable disease, and may take at least up to six weeks In view of these hazards, safety precautions are called for. This task is not straightforward, for reasons such as the following: Factors that Complicate Safety Precautions Any disease that can be caused by a vaccine can also be caused by other agents. To help distinguish causation from chance association, epidemiological studies are often required. These studies are typically time-consuming and resource-intensive. Many potential adverse effects of vaccines have not been systematically studied with the methods of epidemiology. The inventory of side effects of vaccines remains incomplete. Common adverse side effects are likely to be detected during pre-marketing clinical trials. Rare side effects would most likely be overlooked, given the modest number of participants that is customary in clinical trials. Not all adverse effects occur within days or a few weeks of vaccination. Autoimmune disorders may take a month or two to emerge. Virus particles may even remain latent for lengthy periods of months or years, before they begin to trigger diagnosable disease. An example of a combination of vaccines that can cause an autoimmune disorder is MMR (measles-mumps-rubella). Another example may be Hepatitis B vaccine. Even when an injury occurs soon after a vaccination, this may not immediately be noticeable. This applies generally to injuries of the developing nervous system, regardless of the cause. Such neurological syndromes as cerebral palsy and developmental language disorder may come to light months or years after the brain damage was inflicted. The effects of severe injury may take years to show up, for example as learning and attention problems. When several vaccines are given at the same time, they may have adverse effects that none of the individual vaccines have when they are given by themselves. Giving many vaccines at the same time is becoming increasingly prevalent, especially to "captive audiences" like infants Jen

The NAS should assist with funding because it is helping a lot of children with ASD. Wish we had something like that in our area. These two people are doing a fantastic job and deserve funding from the lottery etc. I hope they succeed in securing the funding to help these children and families Jen

Mercury was used to stabilise the drugs, if the drug is not mixed correctly prior to be drawn up than this will make a different to the size of the mercury molecules and it can also affect the effeciency of the drug. How can you research what children had there immunisations mixed correctly before they were injected into a limb. What constitutes good mixing to distribute the mercury, is it shaking a vial for 2 seconds 20 seconds etc. Jen

this was not a medical doctor either, someone giving false hope to the confused mother Jen

The problem with ASD is it is so varied and I believed caused by different things. I believe some children can not metabolise mecury in injections and hence it becomes toxic. I also believe that food and chemicals involved in the preparation of food also plays a part along with hereditary. This is why there are so many problems with diagnosing what causes ASD and hence finding a treatment which works. ASD research needs to approach from different causes of ASD and than we may find a cure for certain causative factors.

One of the local schools had an open plan classroom. This would not be suitable for my child and I hear from some parents that the most of the classrooms have now been converted Jen

our son has had it for 3 years now. We have to increase the dose when he is anxious and we do not give it to him in the holidays as it does not seem to be effective if we give it to him every night. Jen

we let our child use a gameboy and it keeps him content for a long time. We check in our bags and go straight to departures where we sit in a quiet area so he can play his game. We have been going to the same house in Spain for many years because he knows where everything is. All the houses are in a horse shoe shape with the garden and swimming pool in the middle. There are only a few children there so our child does not get too distressed. They even have his favourite television programmes. Jen

While on holiday in Spain we meet up with some old friends and went out to dinner with them. I was telling them about our son and describing how ASD affected him. Later when we were alone my husband said to me "but our son hasn't really got Autism!!!!!" I said of course hes ASD. He gets upset and frustated (several times myself or my husband have had to go into school to settle him down) even though he has a full time LSA in a mainstream school. He knows he attends weekly OT. He has spoken to the ASD advisor on lots of occasions. He knows our son can not attend a normal play scheme because he gets too upset. Hes seem him in meltdowns. Our son was diagnosed 4 years ago. I knew it had taken him a long time to accept the diagnosis but I thought he had accepted it by now. What can you do with a partner like this? Jen

You should be able to read the manufactures leaflet and ask any questions prior to the following. The vial should be checked by the doctor/nurse and client prior to the injection being drawn up infront of you. You must always wait for 10 minutes just in case of any reaction. Jen

You should be able to read the manufactures leaflet and ask any questions prior to the following. The vial should be checked by the doctor/nurse and client prior to the injection being drawn up infront of you. You must always wait for 10 minutes just in case of any reaction. Jen

With some authorities your are entilted to an extra bin if your child is in nappies Jen

Thanks for all the advice I will be using some of the suggestion I think I need to keep it simple and not put too much in as Zemanski has suggested. Jen

What does the sick note say on it. You can use this as evidence, go back to who ever gave you the previous sick note and ask for copies due to a problem with the LEA. Jen

We are going to change a small cloak room area into a sensory room. Does anyone have any ideas. We are going to paint is off white. The school would like pads to be put on the walls so my child has some protection when he goes into a melt down and starts banging his head. Does any one have experience or good ideas. Jen

most areas have stopped this test now. Part of this is because over the last 18 years all children born to asian mothers have automaticly been given the BCG vaccination. Hence, if your family are not in close contact with family members from India or Pakistan than they are not at a high risk of developing TB. Jen

part of running a business it repairing and replacing things that get damage. A drubber seal does not cost alot of money hence the nursery should pay for it. Jen

In our local specialist unit none of the TA's have had any training in ASD so I suppose if they have seen this response work with another child in the unit than they think it is OK to use it. I think you need to speak to the senco and head about training and how the TA are affecting your child. Jen