[FEAT BC Admin]

This area is for discussions in general topics.

Topic

[David Chan]

Well, while I was at the spirited AGM, the boy,
his mom, and grandparents were taking in a
bit of culture. His sister's 2.5 hour ballet
recital. Now That would be 2.5 hours with one
15 minute intermission. The performance
was a great success and a fun time was had
by all.

Why post this non-event?, well remember, this
was the kid who would have a Grand Mal
tantrum in the parking lot of the church.

So what's this got to do with the FEAT chat
board?

Using a Lovaas-based visual schedule with
plenty of built in re-inforcers, we were able to
teach the young man, that sitting NICELY in
church was a very GOOD THING.

This then became generalized to sitting nicely
in movies, weddings, and other public events
requiring prolonged periods of sitting. Did he
really really enjoy the recital? Well, did any of
us really? I am informed by reliable sources
that he was grooving in the appropriate place
during the performace, so I guess it wasn't all
just being polite.

Its not a miracle, just systematic hard work
using the ABA principles. The tantrums in
church were four and a half years ago, do we
still have tantrums, yeah, of course we have
our awkward moments, but usually not at
public venues. One significant hurdle he has
overcome. There are more hurdles ahead to
be sure. but one or more hurdles at a time.

Still Jumping over hurdles,

Mr. P's Mom and Pop

P.S. Mom and the Lovaas consultant are the
brains behind the operation, I'm just the leg
man so to speak.

[David Chan]

Well, while I was at the spirited AGM, the boy,
his mom, and grandparents were taking in a
bit of culture. His sister's 2.5 hour ballet
recital. Now That would be 2.5 hours with one
15 minute intermission. The performance
was a great success and a fun time was had
by all.

Why post this non-event?, well remember, this
was the kid who would have a Grand Mal
tantrum in the parking lot of the church.

So what's this got to do with the FEAT chat
board?

Using a Lovaas-based visual schedule with
plenty of built in re-inforcers, we were able to
teach the young man, that sitting NICELY in
church was a very GOOD THING.

This then became generalized to sitting nicely
in movies, weddings, and other public events
requiring prolonged periods of sitting. Did he
really really enjoy the recital? Well, did any of
us really? I am informed by reliable sources
that he was grooving in the appropriate place
during the performace, so I guess it wasn't all
just being polite.

Its not a miracle, just systematic hard work
using the ABA principles. The tantrums in
church were four and a half years ago, do we
still have tantrums, yeah, of course we have
our awkward moments, but usually not at
public venues. One significant hurdle he has
overcome. There are more hurdles ahead to
be sure. but one or more hurdles at a time.

Still Jumping over hurdles,

Mr. P's Mom and Pop

P.S. Mom and the Lovaas consultant are the
brains behind the operation, I'm just the leg
man so to speak.

[Katy Harandi]

Measles
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

——————————————————————————–
MEASLES OVERVIEW

The Disease

We don't usually think of measles as being a serious disease, but it can be very serious. Most children who get measles will have a rash, high fever, cough, runny nose, and watery eyes. These symptoms last for 1 or 2 weeks. But measles also causes ear infections in nearly 1 out of every 10 children who get it. As many as 1 out of 20 children with measles gets pneumonia. About 1 child in every 1,000 who get measles will get encephalitis. (This is an inflammation of the brain that can lead to convulsions, and can leave your child deaf or mentally retarded.) For every 1,000 children who get measles, 1 or 2 will die from it. Measles can also make a pregnant woman have a miscarriage or give birth prematurely.
Measles spreads very easily from person to person. You can get measles from an infected person who coughs or sneezes around you or even talks to you. Before measles vaccine was available, nearly all children had measles by the time they were 15 years old. An average of 530,000 cases a year were reported in the United States during the 10 years before vaccine was available. And during each of these years over 450 people died because of measles.

****

Just thought some people might want to know why the vaccine was made in the first place.

My brother works for UNICEF in Ethiopia. He suggested going to this site to find out how deadly and serious this disease is in Africa.

http://www.measlesinitiative.org/

Katy (Laila's Mom)

[Katy Harandi]

Measles
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

——————————————————————————–
MEASLES OVERVIEW

The Disease

We don't usually think of measles as being a serious disease, but it can be very serious. Most children who get measles will have a rash, high fever, cough, runny nose, and watery eyes. These symptoms last for 1 or 2 weeks. But measles also causes ear infections in nearly 1 out of every 10 children who get it. As many as 1 out of 20 children with measles gets pneumonia. About 1 child in every 1,000 who get measles will get encephalitis. (This is an inflammation of the brain that can lead to convulsions, and can leave your child deaf or mentally retarded.) For every 1,000 children who get measles, 1 or 2 will die from it. Measles can also make a pregnant woman have a miscarriage or give birth prematurely.
Measles spreads very easily from person to person. You can get measles from an infected person who coughs or sneezes around you or even talks to you. Before measles vaccine was available, nearly all children had measles by the time they were 15 years old. An average of 530,000 cases a year were reported in the United States during the 10 years before vaccine was available. And during each of these years over 450 people died because of measles.

****

Just thought some people might want to know why the vaccine was made in the first place.

My brother works for UNICEF in Ethiopia. He suggested going to this site to find out how deadly and serious this disease is in Africa.

http://www.measlesinitiative.org/

Katy (Laila's Mom)

[Deleted User]

Does anyone know if this theory of vaccines vs. autims has been previously tried in court? What happened? Also, has anyone had a chance to talk to Klein-Lyons in Vancouver about the specifics of the case?

[Maureen St. Cyr]

With regard to vaccines, I believe the jury is still out on all counts, except one — as Erik pointed out, "mercury bad." This is true regardless of whether one's child has autism or not. In fact, from what I've read, this new lawsuit is not based on "vaccines caused my child's autism" — it seems to be based on "the mercury in vaccines caused my child's condition," with one of the conditions being autism.

For those who are not necessarily up on this, the problem is that mercury has been used as a preservative for vaccines for decades. It is not a part of the vaccine — just something to extend the shelf life of the doses. Drug companies were loath to stop using it because it means finding something else that is acceptable as a preservative, or having the vaccines go bad quicker, which means lower profits for the drug companies. Unfortunately, with the proliferation of vaccines over the decades, kids (ours and everyone else's) ended up getting a lot more mercury in their systems at a very early age, since all the vaccines had it. Add them all up and you have children getting accumulated mercury exposure in excess of even the government regulations, let alone common sense safety.

As for the vaccine controversy, DPT has been around for a long long time — we probably all had it as children (I certainly did). What was not around when we were children was MMR and two or three of the others which are either routine now or becoming so. There are some who believe this barrage of vaccinations can cause defects in the brand-new immune systems of children, ours in particular. Part of this has to do with measles vaccine bacteria turning up in children's intestinal tracts long after they should be gone gone gone. Does this mean MMR causes autism? The jury is still out. Maybe MMR causes the digestive issues many of our kids have because something about their autism makes them also susceptible to measles bacteria, even in the weakened vaccine state. There is some theory that autism is an autoimmune disorder, in which case anything which targets, affects, or otherwise impinges on the immune system could have adverse effects.

So Erik, yes, some vaccines are good — even great. Certainly no one wants to be beset by polio epidemics ever again. Now measles and mumps may be a different matter — I had both as a child, along with chicken pox and German measles (the 'R' in "MMR" is rubella, aka German measles). So did everyone in my 2.5 children/house baby-boom neighborhood. Not one child in my 1000-plus school ever had serious complications from measles or chicken pox or mumps. I'm not saying it's not possible. I am saying that one day, we may realize that the cure for the small possibility of measles complications may be much worse. If the chance of measles complication turns out to be much smaller than the chance of autism being caused, exacerbated, or contributed to by the MMR vaccine with or without mercury contamination, then you do the math, make your decision and take your chances.

Bottom line — if I knew then what I even suspect now, I would never have let that GP stick that MMR needle in either of my two children. But that's hindsight, and hindsight is always 20/20.

[Erik Minty]

This sounds like a separate issue to me. There was once concern about MMR vaccines, but I believe this has largely been discounted.

This issue as I read it seems to do with concern over mercury content in certain DPT vaccines (not the vaccine itself). The lawsuit targets a specific manufacturer for product made during a specific time period, and doesn't appear to raise any new concerns over vaccines in general causing autism.

Vaccines good. Mercury bad.

[Deleted User]

Re: Class Action Lawsuit, dpt vaccines, etc.

Maybe you guys can fill me in. I thought that up to this point, there was no scientific support for a link between childhood vaccines and autism? Has something changed or is this just more hogwash perpetrated by naturopaths/Scientologists/assorted other varmints?

[Laurie Guerra]

Interesting news check out

http://www2.mybc.com/news/fs.cfm?source_id=CP&id=1108951

[Barbara Rodrigues]

Hello:

I just wanted to also add to Michelle's post. This message is delayed as I was under the assumption that our computer had the 'Klez virus' and did not want to email any outgoing messages so as not to infect anyone. Seems it's not our computer but someone with our address in their book. Anyhow…

This is in regards to the postings concerning behavioral issues and Avery. I know many times over the last years either Avery or David Chan have posted passionate posts concerning various topics – usually concerning unproven methods vs. ABA treatment. I watched as people jumped at them for their remarks attacking them for their comments. Yet when they respond back – suddenly everyone else is the 'victim'. You know I quite enjoy Avery's remarks – they are powerful, they are usually filled with his sarcastic sense of humour and they are ALWAYS filled with his belief that he is advocating and protecting not only the rights of his little girl but all our children. I have never found his posts to be rude just as I said passionate. We, not just me but all of you need parents like Avery on YOUR kids side when push comes to shove. As for being afraid of Avery's 'bite' well, you know what…if you have a child with autism, you are going to have to learn to deal with a lot, it's a tough road and believe me you are fighting for your child every day and in many forums. Now that's not to say, our chat list should be a big brawl but a little difference of opinions is a great thing.

Now believe me I don't think Avery needs me to say any of this and is probably cringing as he reads this (sorry Avery) but FEAT is made up of many people. Most people know mainly Sabrina and Jean (who of course do so very much) but many of you may not know that Avery does an immense amount of work behind the scenes for FEAT and is an extremely important member of the team and to our kids.

I think if you really read Avery's email concerning the 'behavioral issues', I think his main objective was that it was a therapist not the parent asking the questions – later it was verified that the parent knew of the post- but it was not stated at the time and I know he was concerned that the therapist was going over the heads of the consultant and the parent. We also know that it's a worry if parents have therapists running programs and behavioral issues without consultants and what a worry this. Look at the mess of the 'government run programs' for example.

And then lastly, I disagree that treatment issues can't be discussed between parents/therapists in a forum such as this as long as the parents are making the decisions and/or are discussing the decisions with their consultants. When I first started three months into our program – we had a huge problem with behaviors – Jeremy screamed and ran from the table, threw reinforcers etc. I contacted my consultant at the time and she didn't know what to do…then said she would send a behavioral data sheet up and we would keep data for three weeks and then look for the problem. Well, that wasn't good enough for me, my kid was out of control, so I happened on a chat list and there was someone else having the same problem and asking the same question. The major response from the parents was that their consultants said the first place you look when you have that kind of a problem is the 'reinforcement'. So I went off to Kelowna and bought tons of new reinforcements that weekend – viola – problem solved – one happy child learning again.

I also found my consultant Lisa by reading one of her emails on a list and telling her how much I liked it. (Course I checked her references, etc.) but it was a terrific way to really see what kind of a consultant she was before hiring her.Okay so I begged her to come to Canada:-)

I just hope Avery you will stay, you are a great advocate to our kids and you add spice to the list.

So those are my thoughts. Please feel free to flame me, disagree with me or even ignore me. Believe me I have had to deal with a lot worse.
Remember we are all bonded by the same circumstance and we are so much more powerful when we stick together. We don't have to like each other but we need to remain together as a force because we all are here to help our kids.

Thank you again for your time.

Barbara Rodrigues
Jeremy's Mother

[Author]

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