The Financial Cost of Autism Therapy

As if the struggles that occur when you have an autistic child aren't enough, getting and paying for the therapies needed can totally devastate even the best budgeting.

In 2008, the average American families income was around $44,000 a year.  The cost of a years worth of therapy could easily exceed $70,000.  2010 shows no difference.  If anything, average income is down and the cost of therapy is higher.

Now there are insurance programs, school programs and public outreach programs that can help a family with the costs, but many times these therapies are not implemented by highly and extensively trained persons who focus just on autism.

OBAMACARE
What do we know about autism treatment?  It is expensive.  Young children need 20-25 hours a week of intense intervention.  In California, Blue Cross went up 38%  recently.  Probably due in part to the explosion in numbers diagnosed with autism. 
If the government takes over the health care industry it is my opinion that  there will be rationing.  At least that is what happens where ever there is government run health care.

As of this post, I have YET to find any assistance to families with autistic children.  Once again, the Elected Heros have failed to provide a solution to our struggles.  

For the state of Arizona, there is tool to help families find providers in their area.  This tool has been provided FREE OF CHARGE by the Autism Resource Foundation and can be found HERE.

The Autism Resource Foundation also highly recommends the Hope Group for therapy and respite care.

Vocal Analysis Can Help with Early Autism Diagnosis

Published Online: July 22, 2010 - 9:00:21 AM (CDT)

This article originally appeared at Medgadget.com, part of the HCPLive network.


Identifying autistic kids as early as possible is very important, so that appropriate clinical interventions and upbringing can have the most beneficial effect. Now a new study in the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences has shown that analyzing the unique signature of children's pre-speech vocalizations can be a pretty good way to identify potential cases of autism.

This is done using a fairly simple voice recorder called LENA that kids wear in their clothing for all day recording. The data is then uploaded to a central server where it is analyzed for specific vocal signatures. Interestingly, although the study was conducted on American kids, the same software should be able to work with kids from other languages and cultures.

The Autism Resource Foundation provides resources for families dealing with Autism.

Essential Fatty Acids

Essential Fatty Acids are the "good fats" all over the news these days, and a very hot research topic. More is known about them every week as more studies come forward. Some information hasn't changed since Julius Fast wrote his book The Omega-3 Breakthrough (Tucson, Arizona: The Body Press 1987, ISBN 0-89586-625-0). For example, good fats compete with bad fats, so it's important to minimize the intake of trans fats and cholesterol (animal fat) while consuming enough good fats. Also, good fats raise your HDL or "good cholesterol". One of the jobs of this High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) or "good cholesterol" is to grab your bad cholesterol, LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein), and escort it to the liver where it is broken down and excreted. In other words, these good fats attack some of the damage already done by the bad fats. This is very important in an age when so many Americans are struggling to get their cholesterol down, and fight heart disease and obesity.



VitaMist® Omega (Blue Green Sea Spray) combines omega-3 (linolenic) and omega-6 (linoleic) fatty acids, extracted from both spirulina, a blue-green algae found in various spots around the globe, and flaxseed, a plant whose cultivation stretches back to ancient Egypt.
 
Linolenic acid is a member of the group of essential fatty acids, so called because they cannot be produced within the body and must be acquired through diet.
 
Linoleic acid is also a member of essential fatty acids,  humans and other animals must ingest for good health because the body requires them for various biological processes, but can not synthesize them from other food components. 

Vitamin Therapy and Autism

My good friend Dr. Clive R. Spray has done some fantastic reseach about what vitamins can really assist Autism. 

VITAMIN C

Countless children with autism are vitamin C deficient. Many people therefore are opting to give their children a vitamin C supplement, which may even be helpful for children with who have normal levels of vitamin C. Vitamin C is supposed to have a calming effect on behavior. Vitamin C has supposedly a signaling effect on the brain, like a dopamine effect. This effect may or may not work in all children however if you are considering Vitamin C therapy you should do your research thoroughly and talk with your physician before starting any vitamin regimen.


Another theory for the effective responses of vitamin C is its antioxidant property. Children with autism may have much more trouble managing free radicals than that of other children and free radicals are naturally occurring chemicals that play vital parts in the normal functions of the body. However in some cases the free radicals can cause brain damage or damage to the immune system, organs or other tissues in the body. In the body there are systems to protect tissues from free radical damage, however antioxidants are vital to this protection.

The Best Products to find Vitamin C in: VitaMist C+Zinc, VitaMist Super Cal-Pro

Vitamin B6 and Magnesium

The enzymes that are used to break down vitamin B6 may not work well in children with autism. The breakdown of vitamin B6 is needed to make PLP with is needed to produce dopamine which is a brain chemical that is important in behaviors. If autistic children are not producing enough PLP from vitamin B6, then supplementing their diets with extra B6 may be needed to boost the production of PLP and dopamine to normal levels.


Children who have autism may have significantly lower levels of magnesium than other children. Magnesium supplements may be useful in producing a calming effect on some children with ADHD and therefore may possibly be just as useful on children who suffer from behavior problems and autism.

Aside from the need of magnesium for overall health as well as proper brain functioning, there are really no theories on how magnesium deficiency may

Contribute to autism or how magnesium therapy may significant help autism. However usually the two supplements of vitamin B6 and magnesium are usually given together because side effects from the vitamin B6 may be helped by the magnesium therapy.
If you are considering Vitamin B6 or Magnesium therapy you should research both of them thoroughly and talk with your physician about the supplements and what kind of regimen you are considering before ever starting the therapy. Your physician should be aware of any treatments you are thinking of doing on your own.
The best products to find Vitamin B6 in: VitaMist esbelty Boost, VitaMist D-stress
The best products to find Magnesium in: VitaMist Super Cal-Pro, VitaMist Osteo-CalMag

Vitamin A  

People who suffer from autism may in many cases not have enough vitamin A in their diets. A vitamin A deficiency in their diet may occur because in many cases children with autism have poor nutrition from poor eating habits. A vitamin A deficient person can develop poor sight and severe problems with behavior, Vitamin A therapy can help in many cases to restore damage to eyes and may significantly reduce behavior issues.

Many people have problems getting enough Vitamin A from their normal diet and they need extra Vitamin A supplements for their overall health. Most of these people have a metabolic disorder and vitamin A may help them to regain their health.
Most medical research and physicians don't thoroughly understand how vitamin A supplements may help people with autism and there have been few studies on any of these vitamin therapies.
It should therefore be again noted that if you are considering any vitamin therapy that you should do your research thoroughly into the risks and benefits, along with talking openly with your physician about what kind of therapy you are considering. Your physician should be made aware at what dosage you will be taking the supplements and monitor the person carefully for any signs of adverse effects.
The best products to find Vitamin A in: VitaMist VitaSight and VitaMist Anti-Oxidant
More on Autism

Failed to access IIS metabase ERROR

Got to be one of the most fustrating errors to get after you have spent over a week developing a ASP.NET (2.0) web applications.  So I searched the greatness that is the internet and found many a fix...  sorry, little sarcasm there...

Turns out, installing IIS on an XP sp3 Pro computer AFTER you have been developing is a BAD THING!  I read and read and figured after 5 sites, maybe I need to basically start over.  THANK YOU Amit S Patriwala!  His blog post was the answer to my issue.  I will recap...

If you get this error, follow the steps below:

1. Stop panicing
2. Run the following in a CMD window:   C:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -ua  This uninstalla ALL ASP.NET framework.
3. Run C:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe –ga ASPNET next.  This tells you what the rights are for the ASPNET user.
4. Next, run C:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -iru This is what fixed my issue!
5. Run C:\windows\microsoft.net\framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe –ga ASPNET to verify

Those 5 steps solved a two day issue of my site not working on the XP computer running IIS 5.1. 
Hope this helps someone else!

The Power of aspnet_regiis.exe:

Administration utility (2.0.50727) to install and uninstall ASP.NET on the local machine.

Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

-- ASP.NET REGISTRATION OPTIONS --

-i                  Install this version of ASP.NET and update scriptmaps at the IIS metabase root and for all scriptmaps below the root. Existing scriptmaps of lower version are upgraded to this version.
-ir                 Install this version of ASP.NET, register only. Do not update scriptmaps in IIS.
-iru               Install this version of ASP.NET. If there are any existing applications that uses ASP.NET, it will not update scriptmaps in IIS.
-enable         When -enable is specified with -i, -ir or -r, ASP.NET will be enabled in the IIS security console (IIS 6.0 or later).
-disable        When -disable is specified with -i, -ir or -r, ASP.NET will be disabled in the IIS security console (IIS 6.0 or later).
-s      Install scriptmaps for this version at the specified path, recursively.
                    E.g. aspnet_regiis.exe -s W3SVC/1/ROOT/SampleApp1
-sn    Install scriptmaps for this version at the specified path, non-recursively.
-r                 Install this version of ASP.NET and update scriptmaps at the IIS metabase root and for all scriptmaps below the root. Existing scriptmaps are upgraded to this version regardless of the original versions.
-u                Uninstall this version of ASP.NET. Existing scriptmaps to this version are remapped to highest remaining version of ASP.NET installed on the machine.
-ua              Uninstall all versions of ASP.NET on the machine.
-k     Remove all scriptmaps to any version of ASP.NET from the specified path, recursively.
                   E.g. aspnet_regiis.exe -k W3SVC/1/ROOT/SampleApp1
-kn   Remove all scriptmaps to any version ASP.NET from the specified path, non-recursively.
-lv               List all versions of ASP.NET that are installed on the machine, with status and installation path.
-lk               List all the path of all IIS metabase keys where ASP.NET is scriptmapped, together with the version. Keys that inherit ASP.NET scriptmaps from a parent key will not be displayed.
-c                Install the client side scripts for this version to the aspnet_client subdirectory of each IIS site directory.
-e                Remove the client side scripts for this version from the aspnet_client subdirectory of each IIS site directory.
-ea              Remove the client side scripts for all versions from the aspnet_client subdirectory of each IIS site directory.
-ga   Grant the specified user or group access to the IIS metabase and other directories used by ASP.NET.

-- CONFIGURATION ENCRYPTION OPTIONS --

-pe section       Encrypt the configuration section. Optional arguments:
     [-prov provider] Use this provider to encrypt.
     [-app virtual-path] Encrypt at this virtual path. Virtual path must begin with a forward slash. If it is '/', then it refers to the root of the site. If -app is not specified, the root web.config will be encrypted. [-site site-name-or-ID] The site of the virtual path specified in -app. If not specified, the default web site will be used.    
     [-location sub-path] Location sub path. [-pkm] Encrypt/decrypt the machine.config instead of web.config.
-pd section       Decrypt the configuration section. Optional arguments:
     [-app virtual-path] Decrypt at this virtual path. Virtual path must begin with a forward slash. If it is '/', then it refers to the root of the site. If -app is not specified, the root web.config will be decrypted.
     [-site site-name-or-ID] The site of the virtual path specified in -app. If not specified, the default web site will be used.
     [-location sub-path] Location sub path.
     [-pkm] Encrypt/decrypt the machine.config instead of web.config.
-pef section web-app-physical-dir
     Encrypt the configuration section. Optional arguments:
          [-prov provider] Use this provider to encrypt.
-pdf section web-app-physical-dir
     Decrypt the configuration section.
-pc container      Create an RSA keypair in ContainerName. Optional arguments:
     [-size key-size] Key-size. Default is 1024.
     [-pku] User container instead of machine container.
     [-exp] Make the private keys exportable.
     [-csp provider] Csp Provider to use.
-pz container      Delete the ContainerName. Optional arguments:
     [-pku] User container instead of machine container.
-pi container file   Import an RSA keypair from the Xml file. Optional arguments:
     [-pku] User container instead of machine container.
     [-exp] Create exportable keys.
     [-csp provider] Csp Provider to use.
-px container file Export an RSA keypair to the Xml file. Optional arguments:
     [-pku] User container instead of machine container.
     [-pri] Include private keys.
     [-csp provider] Csp Provider to use.
-pa container account
     Add access for the account to the container. Arguments:
          [-pku] User container instead of machine container.
          [-csp provider] Csp Provider to use.
          [-full] Add full access (default is Read access).
-pr container account
     Remove access for the account from the container.  Arguments:
          [-pku] User container instead of machine container.
          [-csp provider] Csp Provider to use.

-- CONFIGURATION REMOTE ACCESS OPTIONS --

-config+ Enable remote access of configuration.
-config- Disable remote access of configuration.

Genetic markers for autism

The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that a Canadian lead researchers have found genetic markers for autism.

This could be a major break trough if it is accurate.

For so long, we in the Autism community have wonders and speculated what is causing this in our children. We suspected everything from mercury in immunization shots to heredity. Lets hope they have found something.

More Info

Autism Resource Foundation

Friends

Pepsi is doing a wonderful thing, lets help!