School's Diagnosis Changed from DD to Autism

We had the eligibility meeting today. The school teachers and psychologists have been testing Jonathan for the past 3 months and today we discussed the test results and eligibility determination.

Given the test results, and the medical diagnosis, the committee found Jonathan to fall under the criteria of Autism. All 5 areas of concerns that would qualify a child to receive this label were met by Jonathan:

• Deficit in verbal and non-verbal communication
• Significant Deficit in social interaction
• Emotional disability can be ruled out as primary cause
• Deficit in adaptive, communication and social interaction
• Student requires specialized instruction/support that cannot reasonably be provided through regular education

We are relieved that he was found eligible to receive special education services because although he is high functioning, he still requires a lot of intervention to help him catch up.

These are the tests conducted and the results:

* IQ: Overall 100 (average 90-110)

• Non-Verbal: 115 (superior)
• Verbal: 85 (below average)

• Due to his language constraints, Jonathan showed a significant gap between verbal and non-verbal abilities. In the non-verbal abilities, his areas of strength were visual spacial and fluid reasoning. His brain functions better with pictures than words.

* Visual Motor Integration: score 120 - 91 percentile (superior)

• This test shows his ability to put words and images in paper. This is another one of his areas of strengths as well. He can clearly draw shapes and figures and represent in paper the function that he is asked to represent.

* Sensory Profile - Occupational Therapy: High Threshold for some sensory information

• Jonathan demonstrated abnormal differences between behaviors involving the registration of sensory information, seeking sensory information and avoiding sensory information. He may avoid activities that require high threshold for noticing information, such as quiet listening or passive waiting tasks. He is not hyperactive, but requires some sensory input to organize his body so he can pay more attention. However, he is not aggressive and does not seek that type of sensory input.

* Autism Quotient (GARS): 66 percentile (90-110 are average for individuals with autism). The lower the better.

• This represents that although he still qualifies to receive an "autism" label, he is among the children that adapt to changes, that learn easier under normal educational environments and are considered higher functioning.

* Tests of Achievement

• Word Identification: equivalent to a 7.2 year old child (superior)
• Spelling: equivalent to a 7.0 year old child (superior)
• Applied Problem: equivalent to a 5.3 year old child (average)
• Academic Knowledge: equivalent to a 4.7 year old child (average)
• The teacher indicated that although Jonathan scored lower in the applied problem and academic knowledge than the other two, the primary reason is the verbal communication. She has no doubt that his knowledge is much higher. But she was not allowed to alter the questions of the standardized test and she believes that if she had asked the questions differently, he would have gotten a higher score. Again, this shows that he has a severe problem with language and pragmatics.

* Speech and Language Evaluation - (average scores are 85 - 115)

• Peabody Picture Vocabulary: score 94 – (average)
• CELF-PS (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - Preschool) – standard score for all the subtests is 10:
• Receptive Language: score 79 – (below average)
• Linguistic Concept: score 7 - mildly delayed
• Basic Concept: score 8 - mildly delayed
• Sentence Structure: score 3 - significantly delayed
• Expressive Language: score 79 – (below average)
• Recalling Sentences in Context: score 7 - mildly delayed
• Formulating Labels: score 7 - mildly delayed
• Word Structure: score 4 - significantly delayed

Clearly, Jonathan is a very bright young kid. His non-verbal intelligence is his asset. The areas to address are language (expressive, receptive and pragmatics), adequate sensory input to concentrate and pay more attention and social skills.

IEP meeting (Individualized Educational Program - school's contract for special ed services) will take place within 3 weeks. At that time, we will be able to negotiate with the school the type of services we would like Jonathan to receive to address the above areas of concerns (highlighted in red).

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Urine Toxic Metal Results

Results came in for the last UTM and indicated that he is dumping more mercury than ever before.

Dr. Yasko feels that Jonathan has a mutation in his methylation short-cut cycle (BHMT 1 or 4 and/or ACAT genes). BHMT enzyme is the one that breaks TMG into DMG, which is necessary for speech and language. This is Jonathan's mayor disability, aside from social interaction. If her suspicion is correct, I need to work with her to by-pass this mutation to help Jonathan convert TMG into DMG and process DMG in the body better. I will order the added SNPs test tomorrow.

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Overall, Jonathan had a pretty good day today. Very consistent from yesterday and the day before. One thing I noticed today as I put the EDTA suppository is that he has a rash in his bottom that looks like a die-off effect reaction. It could be because I increased his probiotics this week. I will monitor closely.