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The early research in Neurofeedback / EEG Biofeedback was in connection with motor seizures. However, absence seizures did not typically yield to the early methods. That has since changed. With the latest of Neurofeedback techniques, the training should be considered for absence seizures at any age. That is to say, the child is never too young to be trained. No research is available that deals with Neurofeedback for absence seizures specifically, but by now it is apparent that Neurofeedback is effective for a variety of seizure types.
Effectiveness in this context means a reduction in seizure incidence of greater than 30%, averaging better than 50%, with many children becoming entirely seizure-free and even reducing or eliminating their meds. In other words, Neurofeedback is at least as effective as the addition of a new anti-convulsant is expected to be for an already medicated child.
Addiction is a brain-based problem, and it demands a brain-based solution. The will is over-rated when it comes to the addicted brain. Fortunately, a new era opened up at the outset of the "Decade of the Brain" with the publication in 1989 of Eugene Peniston's epoch-making study of Viet Nam Veteran alcoholics (see Alcoholism below). Our own research group participated in a replication of this work, and it included a variety of drugs of choice. The result was that outcome was in no way dependent on the drug of preference, whether we were talking about heroin or crack cocaine or methamphetamine or alcohol.
The inclusion of Neurofeedback in residential treatment tripled the favorable outcome in terms of relapse prevention over the best conventional treatment when looked at one year post-treatment. At three years, the ratio was even better.
It is estimated that for every dollar spent in addictions treatment, the society saves $7. This appears to be the case even with simply abominable outcome statistics in conventional treatment. Multiply this by a factor of three and we see that the society is better off by $21 for every dollar spent in treatment. And the formerly addicted person is clearly better off as well. The implementation of Neurofeedback-augmented treatment programs should be a priority for our society.
- Age-Related Cognitive Decline (ARCD)
Studies have been done that show improvement in cognitive function with the simplest of techniques, even including standard light-sound brain stimulation. These stimulation techniques can readily be managed by the elderly person even on their own. Better results can no doubt be achieved with personalized, targeted, and clinically guided Neurofeedback training. But one need not start there. Improved mental function is available to all the elderly at very modest cost of entry.
Used in combination with a program of physical exercise and guided nutrition, the elderly have the potential of significant enhancement of quality of life in their declining years.
- Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum
We have seen only a very small number of cases of agenesis of the corpus callosum. The functional deficits here tend to be in the area of complex social relationships rather than functions such as the coordination of movement. Neurofeedback can be helpful here, and a trial of the training is to be recommended. The same should hold for those who had their corpus callosum surgically severed to reduce seizure incidence. In an individual case, it is never clear what symptoms may traceable to the absence of a functioning corpus callosum. The point is simply that the existence of this organic deficit is no reason not to undertake a trial of Neurofeedback / EEG Biofeedback.
The traditional view of aging as a relentless process of functional decline is being displaced by a new optimism about the positive influence we might have over that process. So many problems have been written off simply to "aging" and then the status quo becomes accepted. Neurofeedback is one of a number of interventions that can now make a substantial difference in the quality of life of the elderly. The list of common complaints among the elderly that can be impacted by Neurofeedback includes: anxiety and agitation; depression; sleep onset problems; frequent waking; incontinence; irritability; age-related cognitive decline; dementia; Parkinsonism; motor symptoms such as Dystonia and essential tremor; deterioration of memory function; pain syndromes; mental confusion and even paranoia. Each of these topics is discussed separately below.
Since a number of the above issues are grounded in degenerative processes, once Neurofeedback is undertaken to improve function it may also be necessary to continue the training on some schedule in order to maintain gains. This can be done on a home-training basis under clinical supervision.
The standard anti-depressants are not really designed for agitated depression. Remediating agitated depression is more appropriately left to Neurofeedback / EEG Biofeedback. Techniques have been devised to train the brain toward stability and toward enhanced emotional regulation. The techniques need to be tailored to the person, and it is expected that a person would respond to the training within a modest number of training sessions.
The breakthrough study on the application of Neurofeedback / EEG Biofeedback to alcoholism was performed by Eugene Peniston, psychologist on the staff at Fort Lyons Veterans Administration Hospital in Colorado. The treatment outcome for alcohol addiction treatment for Viet Nam veteran pilots was abysmal at the time. Peniston had personally experienced biofeedback and Neurofeedback at the Menninger Clinic where an early research group in EEG biofeedback was continuing its work. The group was aware of the benefits of EEG biofeedback for alcoholism, but that was not their real interest.
Peniston took the method back with him to Fort Lyons where he undertook a controlled study. The results were striking. Every veteran who did the Neurofeedback (ten out of ten) was no longer abusing alcohol after the training, whereas everyone in the control group, which received the regular in-patient treatment, continued the pattern of addiction after release. The contrast could not have been more dramatic.
These results were then replicated by others, including our own research group (see Addictions, above). The result is that we now have a technique for the remediation of alcohol dependency that has high predictability. The problem with the acceptance of these results is that they are seem too good to be true, given the dreadful outcome record of traditional addictions treatment. That is in fact the key problem with a lot of claims around Neurofeedback. They sound too good to be true, so the information is simply not processed by people steeped in mainstream thinking.
Neurofeedback / EEG Biofeedback is not a treatment for allergies. However, Neurofeedback training can result in reduced reactivity to the triggers of an allergic response, and suffering may be reduced. Some of the improvement seen in ADHD children is no doubt attributable to the fact that they are less susceptible to allergic reactions after the Neurofeedback training. The effect is not so large that people with allergies should seek out Neurofeedback specifically as a remedy. Rather, if someone is training for another purpose, reduction in allergic susceptibility may well be a fringe benefit.
Case Report:
The following report came from a Neurofeedback professional:
"Something unexpected and wonderful has happened since training myself with EEG feedback. My lifelong severe allergies have nearly disappeared!
I am the guy that was jokingly referred to by the staff at the allergist office as "Mister Allergy" when I went for testing some years ago. Out of the forty substances I was tested for, I was severely allergic to all but four. The allergist recommended that I not go outdoors any more, it was so bad.
But thanks to Neurofeedback I have sneezed only four or five times this season. And this while those around me have had the worst allergy problems in years! This was an unexpected effect of training because I thought that allergies were one of the things that Neurofeedback didn't usually help. I can think of nothing else to attribute my improvement to."
A Clinician's Report:
A 40-year-old man was training with me for immune system problems (which resulted in complete hair loss, including eylashes). He is now growing hair all over, patchy but very full. He is also a diabetic and now has drastically reduced his insulin intake. He had tried a number of things before for his hair loss, to no avail.
In the early stages of the disease process, functional improvement may well be obtained with Neurofeedback / EEG Biofeedback. It has been estimated that if the onset of symptoms can be postponed for even two years, the savings to our nation would amount to some $50B. The data to support specific claims are not yet in hand, but it seems at least plausible that such a two-year objective lies within reach with Neurofeedback, or at least with Neurofeedback in conjunction with optimum nutrition and detoxification strategies. If this clinical approach bears fruit consistently, the annual cost of delivering Neurofeedback to an estimated 400,000 new entrants into the program per year would be no more than $1B/year. If other costs of care were thus abated for at least two years, we would project a benefit/cost ratio of 25:1. The value of misery thus avoided is impossible to quantify.
Our own clinical experience with Alzheimer's dementia is quite limited, but what we have is, on balance, favorable. Training should be started at the very first sign of symptoms that hint at the possibility of an AD diagnosis. Once training is begun with a degenerative condition such as this, it needs to be maintained on some schedule to retain the gains achieved in training. Fall-off in cognitive and memory skills may follow within weeks upon a cessation of the training. It is likely that stimulation techniques can be helpful here as they are in Age-Related Cognitive Decline. However, that has not been shown.
This condition is commonly encountered in connection with head trauma. Remediation of amnesia has been achieved with Neurofeedback. However, this typically occurs early in the post-trauma period where some spontaneous recovery is also expected. So it is not always clear whether the Neurofeedback made the difference. But if a person is suffering from amnesia under such circumstances, Neurofeedback should certainly be tried.
One of the easiest conditions to work with using Neurofeedback / EEG Biofeedback is garden-variety anger control. One trains the brain, and anger simply falls away. This is startling to mental health therapists who have struggled with this for years, and it may even be startling to the person training his brain. Traditionally we have aimed to have the client take responsibility for his anger and to bring it under control.
- If the anger just goes away with training, where is the "I" in this transaction?
- What does the will have to do with it?
- The self seems diminished if the problem is resolved without the "I" being at the table.
- "Wait, I want my anger back!"
- "Sorry, you can't have it..."
In actual fact, nothing has been lost. The capacity for anger remains. What has been gained is a measure of control. Our internal experience of untrammeled anger is that it is a good fit to the circumstances. After Neurofeedback, the outside world just doesn't seem quite so deserving of our anger. Our perceptions both of ourselves, of the other, and of the situation will have broadened, and that is an unalloyed good.
Anorexia is one of the most difficult of the eating disorders to treat. Neurofeedback should be part of a comprehensive treatment program, but it should not stand alone. The perplexing misperceptions with respect to self-image do not yield readily to psychotherapy, but they may well respond to brain-training. Traumatic aspects in the chain of causation can also be helped with Neurofeedback. Depressive behavior patterns can be helped, as well as obsessive and compulsive features of the eating disorder. And appetite itself is a self-regulatory response that yields to Neurofeedback training.
This topic deserves a longer discussion, but in this thumbnail sketch let it just be said that the bread and butter of the biofeedback field is the treatment of anxiety disorders. There are any number of ways in which a person's physiology can be trained to function in a calmer fashion at lower levels of physiological arousal or state of agitation. A lot of the work with anxious people involves teaching them the ways in which they can help their own condition with conscious influence on their own physiology.
A simple change in breathing strategy, for example, can bring about profound changes in health and well-being. One does not have to go around thinking about one's breathing all the time, either. The learning of new ways of functioning will lead to the adoption of new habits by the body-mind. One is consciously engaged with one's physiology only a small fraction of the time-perhaps when one is under challenge, or one is standing on the threshold of a command performance.
Neurofeedback / EEG Biofeedback can help as well. Gently the brain is trained to operate out of a calmer place. Initially this may take the anxious person out of his or her historical comfort zone. Even if this is actually a zone of discomfort, it is still what the person is accustomed to. The loss of anxiety may actually seem like the loss of a kind of safety. Anxiety may not feel good; but it is at least keeping the person alive! The sudden disappearance of anxiety may leave the person feeling exposed and insecure.
So it is important to train people toward calmer states while keeping them within their comfort zones. The training is therefore highly individualized, and that is the breakthrough that Neurofeedback has made possible. We encounter three classes of anxiety: 1) anxiety so severe that it is practically disabling to the person; 2) an anxiety level that interferes with the quality of life and keeps the person from optimum functioning; and 3) living in a condition of high arousal that costs a person in terms of energy expenditure now and possibly depression or even reduced life expectancy later; however, the state may not be felt as one of anxiety. Such a high-wire act may in fact be seen as a pathway to success and be rewarded as such. But it is costly, and not at all necessary because it is inefficient and ultimately exhausting.
Each of these takes a different approach in training. The more severe condition may also have its roots back in the early childhood history of the sufferer, and that also has implications for what is to be done. Fortunately, with Neurofeedback one can even reach back figuratively into early childhood history and alter the present consequences of such early trauma. If the present experience of anxiety is rooted in early memories, then a thoroughgoing resolution of the issue will involve a retraining of the physiology that will involve a reworking of the early trauma history. With Neurofeedback, that can all take place quite benignly through sequential training procedures.
The benefit of resolving anxiety conditions are not just to be seen narrowly with respect to anxiety per se, but will influence the person's entire quality of life. Altered will be how the person pays attention; emotional relationships will change; and the person will relate differently to the perceived "self." This is not something that the anxious person is necessarily even capable of imagining. It may simply have to be experienced.
One of the contributory issues in weight control is simply the fact that the appetite may not be well regulated. Like other regulatory functions, the sense of appetite can respond to Neurofeedback training. Those who find themselves struggling to regulate their food intake; those who eat by the clock; and those for whom fullness is the first hint of satiety may all benefit from a sequence of Neurofeedback sessions. Success in this regard may make a comprehensive weight loss strategy more successful.
Speech articulation may respond quite readily to a specific Neurofeedback protocol that targets Broca's area. If that does not promptly yield benefit, then a number of related protocols suggest themselves for trial. EEG properties under challenge may also be used to guide protocol. If the problems are developmental, some significant functional improvement may be expected. In the case of stroke or traumatic brain injury, the gains are less predictable. Nevertheless, the training should be attempted. New opportunities for functional reorganization arise over a period of years subsequent to a stroke, so the training should be investigated periodically for new learning opportunities.
Recent advances in Neurofeedback protocols have given considerable impetus to work with Asperger's Syndrome. The advantage here is that the person at issue may in fact exhibit considerable intellectual gifts, which can be helpful in Neurofeedback. Training for this condition involves a primary focus on emotional regulation, with a secondary focus on anxiety (worry) and obsessional features that may be present. Other non-verbal learning disabilities may also be present, and these may require specific attention.
Case Report:
Adolescent training for Asperger's and Migraine
A 13-year old was brought to the office by his mother. He did not come willingly.
The mother brought the child for his Asperger's, and not for his daily migraine headaches. The mother was concerned because the son was not picking up facial cues. He also had occasional violent meltdowns, anger episodes, and rages. He was severely depressed.
In the boy's world view, if he had to be here for Neurofeedback it was going to be for his sleep issues. He was very negative about the training, thinking it was for "losers" and "retards," so he denied any association between the Neurofeedback and problems of the brain. The headaches turned out not to be a motivator for the training because he had absorbed the notion that he would just have to live with those.
The boy had a slight headache after the first Neurofeedback session. That evening he went for a walk with his dad, with whom he famously did not get along. This was unprecedented. A headaches was experienced after the second session as well, and then again just before session #7.
Only at that time did the switch get made to the headache protocol. With the switch to the migraine protocol no further headaches were experienced until session #18. By this point his sleep had also improved, and there was less emotional reactivity. The parents' focus throughout remained more on school and social issues than on the headaches.
At session twenty the decision was made to move the family into home training. Ten sessions were done at home under these circumstances, at which point the son refused to do any more sessions. Some time later the boy experienced another bad headache. The mother immediately put him on the instrument and got rid of the headache. This led to the son accepting more sessions somewhat grudgingly. The family came in for a mid-course correction session at the office at session 37.
Some time later the boy declared that he no longer wanted to be in his algrebra class. It turned out that he was very competitive, and that if he couldn't do better than the others in a class such as algebra then he just didn't want to be there. Left frontal training was recommended to the family. They did one session of the training, and the very next day the son got the highest mark in the class in algebra. This helped change the son's attitude toward the training somewhat, but he remained in a slightly oppositional stance. It seems like he could not fail to interpret matters in terms of something being wrong with his brain, and he could not go there.
With sessions having become merely episodic in the household, the Neurofeedback instrument was returned, and the family will come to training as necessary at the office. At this point there is no issue any more with emotional melt-downs or anger episodes or rages. The youngster could still benefit from additional training, but it is no longer an emergency.
It has been known for some years that biofeedback techniques can be helpful with both the severity and incidence of asthmatic episodes. We can now say that Neurofeedback techniques can be helpful as well, and this should be no surprise. So if a family is looking for help in this area, they might well seek out a biofeedback practitioner. However, if the family has reason to do Neurofeedback for any of a number of reasons, any asthma susceptibility may be helped as well.
We see this simply in terms of improving the stability of functioning of the autonomic nervous system. The brain is heavily involved in such regulation, so it stands to reason that Neurofeedback training might be helpful here. The surprising element, if any, is that the benefit is sometimes quite considerable, with inhalers going unused for months on end. The Neurofeedback will not have eliminated the asthma susceptibility in any sense, but it will have raised the threshold for the onset of symptoms.
- Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
Even after all these years, Attention Deficit Disorder is still only poorly understood. Attention is so central to how we function that one can have a different view of the matter of attention deficits depending on one's perspective. These different perspectives each have some degree of validity, but they may be difficult to bring under one hat. It may even be necessary to see the subject from various perspectives in order to encompass it. So in the following, we add one more perspective. Read on for a fascinating journey.
One can start from the vantage point that it is the business of the brain to pay attention. It must be vigilant to threats to our existence; it must organize our response to the world; and it must look to its own affairs. In that regard, the brain appears to be very self-absorbed. Most of its resources are spent paying attention to itself. Only a very small percentage, on the order of one percent, is spent paying attention to the outside world.
So if we observe a child that is highly distractible, impulsive, and hyperactive, does the problem lie only in what we can observe? No. The problem lies more broadly in the issue of how the brain organizes its attentional and regulatory faculties. What we observe is analogous to the part of the iceberg that sticks out of the water. There is a lot more of the iceberg that we cannot see. Similarly, in the ADHD child we observe "disregulation" in a variety of functions where it may be less obvious: in the organization of sleep; perhaps in immune or endocrine function; perhaps in auditory processing; perhaps in emotional regulation; and perhaps even in the regulation of blood glucose levels.
The operative word in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is "Disorder," and it can affect a variety of functions. In other words, we see ADHD as a Disorder of Disregulation, and the extent of that disregulation is a function of how carefully we look.
And if that is the case (we agree that we need lots of evidence on this point!), then the remedy is to be found in any technique that restores more ordered regulation. We know the endpoint: managing attention and behavior is the outcome of a self-regulatory process. We don't have any kind of prosthesis in our medical armamentarium that can prop up our attentional faculties. The brain has to do it all. So whatever we undertake has to serve the cause of better self-regulation of attention and behavior.
Now as we know, a common remedy for ADHD is the stimulant medications. These clearly can support brain function in its regulatory tasks. But the objective is kind of minimal: it is to rescue the child (or adult) from what may be a burdensome dysfunction. We'd like to think, however, that good brain function is more than a matter of being above the threshold of obvious deficits. We can describe the quality of cortical function in a variety of ways that are not just pass/fail criteria but range across the entire realm of human function.
A concert pianist, for example, needs to maintain good brain nutrition as a minimum. But having good brain nutritional status does not make one a concert pianist. So let us ask the more subtle question, is the child functioning as well he or she can with the brain God gave him. Let's go beyond the issue of pass/fail. Here is turns out that modern science has handed us the capacity to appeal to the functional plasticity that is available in our brains to obtain better function. We can take a child medicated for ADHD and considerably improve their academic performance and their level of functioning in the world.
This involves a learning technique much like learning the skill of playing the piano. Only in this case the learning is so fundamental that once it has taken place the brain remembers it and continues to practice it. Life itself can be looked at as a continuing lesson in the learning and practice of self-regulation. And so we don't forget what we once learned because the skills continue to get used.
More good news: When ADHD children learn this skill they find that the stimulant medication that may have helped them earlier is no longer necessary. This is true for at least 85% of them, according to published research. What does this tell us? It tells us that the entire problem of ADHD may simply be one of disregulation, and that once good self-regulation is learned, the problem disappears. It can no longer be identified within the child. It no longer exists. This in turn means that ADHD is not a concrete condition like cerebral palsy, but actually a much more wimpy kind of failure to self-regulate that is easily remedied. Train the brain to pay attention and voila, no more attention deficit. Some children will have to expend a little more effort to get there, but that's true in all of education. Paying attention is a skill, only it happens to be one that is rather more central to our good function than some others.
Now we get to the heart of the matter: It's not just about attention. It's really about behavior-impulsivity, oppositionality, defiance, etc. It turns out that these just involve different aspects of the brain's attentional repertoire. Emotional regulation occurs when we pay attention with our emotional faculties on-line and intact. The brain that can regulate its attention can also regulate its behavior.
It's one story, not two or more.
So a single kind of brain training, targeting our attentional mechanisms, can effect normalization of behavior of the most intractable ADHD child. This is simply breath-taking. Now again, one wants some evidence at this point. You can find it at our research site, www.eegresearch.com.
Neurofeedback is now being used with the most difficult children in the custody of the State of California. It is being used in a Federal penitentiary, and in the California prison system. It is being used in the Minnesota school systems and elsewhere. There are some 8,000 or more professionals providing Neurofeedback to ADHD kids around the US. Probably some 100,000 children per year are being helped. This is only a fraction of those who are on stimulant medication, but then the effect of Neurofeedback is cumulative. Next year, it will be another 100,000, and within a decade most children will no longer be on stimulants
Case Report:
The following report came from a parent of a Neurofeedback client:
Our son continues to be incredibly successful, thanks significantly to the Neurofeedback that Sue Othmer guided. We were told by a neuropsychologist at a Ritalin mill that he had an IQ of 107, and would never do well at math. After 100 Neurofeedback sesssions, he's a straight-A college sophomore, majoring in math and physics. Thank God we didn't listen to the "experts"!
Related EEG Info Newsletter Articles:
Working with Behaviorally Difficult Children
More on ADHD
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
This topic is extensively covered elsewhere. In brief, the brain mechanisms that govern attention are trainable, and they are trainable efficiently, even in the nervous systems labeled ADHD. In combination with other remedies, essentially complete resolution of ADHD symptoms should be achievable for the vast majority (85-95%) of children so diagnosed. The remainder should function much better for having trained their brains. Almost no one in this category remains unaffected in their level of function with Neurofeedback. For those whose progress is either slow or minute, attention must be given to other factors impinging on the condition (including dietary factors; heavy metal toxicity; mineral availability; gut function; aspartame dependency; lifestyle issues; family systems issues; etc.)
It has been shown in one Canadian study that more than 85% of ADHD children no longer benefited from stimulant medication after Neurofeedback. With continued advance in training protocols, this percentage may well approach 95%. On the other hand, the focus is always on obtaining better function, not on getting the children off medications.
In a paper titled "Update on Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder," published in Current Opinion in Pediatrics (Current Opinion in Pediatrics. 16(2):217-226, April 2004.), Katie Campbell Daley reviewed the research and practice standards on treatment of ADHD. Dr. Daley is on the staff of the Department of Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston and in the Department of Pediatrics of the Harvard Medical School.
Her conclusion: "Overall, these findings support the use of multi-modal treatment, including medication, parent/school counseling, and EEG biofeedback, in the long term management of ADHD, with EEG biofeedback in particular providing a sustained effect even without stimulant treatment... Parents interested in non-psychopharmacologic treatment can pursue the use of complementary and alternative therapy. The therapy most promising by recent clinical trials appears to be EEG biofeedback."
Case Report:
The following are excerpts from an article by Dan Dinello that appeared in the Chicago Tribune, November 11, 2007:
Julie Hancher's 8-year-old son, Nathan, who experienced many problems at school, was diagnosed with ADHD. "He was having trouble focusing and being attentive to the teacher," said Hancher, who lives in the northwest suburbs. "He was getting angry and having trouble completing his assignments."
Taking large doses of Concerta, a timed-release variation of the same ingredient in Ritalin, "was making him too lethargic and sleepy," so she and her husband were desperate for an alternative. After extensive research, they took Nathan to Bonesteel's [Neurofeedback] clinic. Neurofeedback for children often employs a video-game interface, such that controlling brain waves takes the form of slowing or speeding up a rocket ship or racecar.
"I just play the game, it's fun," Nathan said. He goes once a week for an hour. "We saw gradual improvement," Hancher said. "He's more attentive, with improved coping skills and less anxiety. He takes less medication, and he's totally focused in therapy. He's even made the honor roll."
"You can chemically condition the brain with pills or do it with Neurofeedback," Bonesteel said. "But Neurofeedback trains more specifically than pills, without the side effects. It also changes the brain for the better in an ongoing way."
Related EEG Info Newsletter Articles:
Advancing the Neuroscience of ADHD
One of the most challenging conditions encountered in the clinical world is Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), in which the child has not had a chance to bond with a mother figure in early infancy. The behavioral consequences of early childhood abuse are dire, and the consequences of neglect may well be even worse. These problems do not yield readily to psychotherapeutic interventions. They do, however, yield to more physiologically-based remedies such as Neurofeedback and those techniques that aim to calm the mind through the body (somatically-based remedies).
Attachment Disorder may also eventuate if the child's nervous system is not capable of responding to the bonding experience, and this is a key feature of the autism spectrum. A commonality among all of these conditions is that the physiological response needs to be altered in these children. Their primary response to the world is through fear, a thorough-going sense of not being safe. This is not a problem to be solved through talk therapy. The fear response grips the entire body-mind, and it is the body-mind that must be re-educated. This can readily be done with Neurofeedback, and it can be done at any age.
Quick results should be obtained that convince the therapist of the efficacy of the training. However, Neurofeedback may well be required for an extended period of time and over many sessions (>100) before the person exhausts the benefits of the training.
- Auditory Processing Deficits
Auditory processing deficits do respond to Neurofeedback, but in this case other remedies are available that should be brought to bear as well. Direct challenges to auditory processing through complex sounds can often be very helpful, and these don't require a clinician standing by. The Tomatis method and "The Listening Program" are two programs that should be considered along with Neurofeedback. Sound is altered in various ways in these programs, with the result that the brain is challenged in its timing and frequency-based organization.
One may think of Neurofeedback as challenging the timing and frequency-based organization at the lower end of the frequency spectrum, the one that is occupied by the EEG, whereas the sound-based programs challenge higher frequencies that test the limit of the brain's timing integrity. The combination covers the entire range of frequencies that the brain has to contend with in life. When the two methods are combined, as is typically the case in the clinical setting, it is not clear entirely where credit is to be assigned. That question can be left for research to sort out later. For the time being, it is sufficient to know that these techniques exist, and that the brain is profoundly responsive to them.
The absolute first thing that needs to be said about autism treatment is that the cloud of pessimism is finally lifting. This is a climate change, and no one factor is responsible. We have been both a witness to this change and a participant. We are actually nearer the beginning of the story that needs to be told than to the end. But there is urgency here for every family with a child on the autism spectrum, and we must share with you what we know, even though we still "see through the glass darkly.""
The second thing to be said is that we already know that there will never be anything like a "cure," by which we mean a singular, definitive remedy. That of course has been the assumption all along, which accounts for the persistent pessimism around autism. How then can we be optimistic now, even though that statement remains true? The answer is two-fold. First, progress is being made in understanding a variety of dysfunctions in the body that contribute to autistic symptoms. Secondly, progress is being made in understanding what is actually going wrong in the brain in consequence of the identified dysfunctions.
These two lines of inquiry lead to very different ways of approaching a solution. We might call one the "bottom-up" approach, as each one of the identified deficits gets addressed specifically in each child. The other is the "top-down" approach in which the resulting deficits in brain function are addressed directly. The result is a kind of pincer movement in which the combination of approaches may lead to a substantial normalization of function.
The contribution of this volume will be to the top-down approach, where we challenge the brain to function better than before, whatever its physical limitations may be. This is just one piece of the puzzle, but we are increasingly optimistic about the recovery capacity of the brain as we explore the potential of this work. The basic idea is simple. The biomedical deficits in the autism spectrum have the effect of disrupting the brain's communication pathways. Some pathways are affected more than others, with the result that autistic children reveal a mixture of function and dysfunction.
Now some attempt along these lines has already been made, with the behavioral treatments that are recommended for autistic children. Unfortunately, these methods depend upon the very aspects that don't function well in the child. The new approach looks at behavior at the brain level rather than at the child level. That is to say, we observe the brain regulating its behavior rather than looking at the child doing so.
The brain encodes all of our sensory information about the world outside and inside, and then it processes all that information in code. We are just beginning to figure out how the brain does all this. But we can already see the difference between when it does these things well and when it does them poorly. Once this is recognized, we can train or "reinforce" the brain for moving toward a better-behaved state. That turns out to be a lot more effective than training the overt behavior. So we are just talking about applying common behavioral techniques to brain behavior, and fortunately the child's brain obliges us.
So what is the "brain behavior" that we are looking at? First of all, we recognize that the business of the brain is communication and information processing. This happens rapidly and transiently. To witness this process, we must look at the brain "at the speed of brain function." The only means we have readily available to do this is the EEG (electroencephalogram). No other kind of imagery of brain function can reveal to us what we need to see. (The only exception is the kindred MEG, for magnetoencephalogram. Here the instrumentation costs millions, so the matter is entirely irrelevant to ordinary mortals like ourselves.)
Yet even the EEG, taken from the scalp is incapable of seeing individual nerve cells do their work. With an electrode on the scalp, we are too far removed. It would be like trying to listen in on conversations in the Rose Bowl that are taking place on the other side of the stadium. On the other hand, you don't have to even be in the stadium to know when a touchdown has been scored. The collective roar of the crowd tells the tale. And that is also what we get to see in the EEG-neurons acting in groups. For that, we don't have to be so close.
It turns out that the brain does essentially everything with neurons acting in groups. Conveniently, that is also what we get to see in the EEG, which can detect the activity of as few as 10,000 neurons. So we end up watching "crowd behavior" in the brain, and just as we are able to tell a well-behaved from an unruly crowd at a British soccer match, we can tell good from bad behavior in the brain.
When we watch "neurons in groups" evolving their behavior over time, we actually never know what information the brain is dealing with at any moment. We are really just seeing the brain's process of crowd control at work. But this again takes us exactly where we want to go. We don't really care to know what the brain is "thinking" right at that place and right at that time. We just want to see how well it is doing at crowd control. The whole issue wraps around how well the brain is controlling its affairs, which boils down to how well it is handling its precious cargo, information, which is being carried by these squadrons of neurons.
In the early days of Western Union, a Wall Street guy realized that all he needed to do is track the volume of telegrams going back and forth between New York and the hinterlands in order to have a good idea about the level of economic activity in various parts of the country. He did not have to know the content of the telegrams. Matters are similar for us. We get to see the volume of the brain's telegraphic activity at any one moment and at any one place, and we don't actually have to open the mail to find out what we need to know. This analogy goes further, in that the nature of information transfer in the brain is also telegraphic!
In microcosm, the brain has the problem of maintaining the integrity of information until it is done with it, and this in turn means maintaining the integrity of the neuronal assemblies that are the carrier of the information. Right away we run into a conundrum: The neuronal assemblies must overlap in space. After all, a number things go on at any one place in cortex at any one time. Imagine for a moment that three Portuguese farmers all wanted to herd their sheep through town at the same time. If the herds were allowed to mingle, it would be difficult to segregate them again later. Not so when the sheep are neurons. It turns out that if the sheep were neurons, the three herds would each march to a different drummer, and every neuron would still "belong" to its native herd even if it found itself in the midst of the other herds.
The spatial segregation of the herds that the Portuguese farmers have to pull off occurs for the neurons in the domain of frequency. If we track the EEG at a certain point on the scalp over time, we can analyze the signal in terms of the various different frequencies that make it up. Then the whole thing evolves over time. What we observe is that the activity "bunches" at certain frequencies, and these key frequencies cover the whole EEG spectral band. Between these frequencies of peak activity we see things go to an absolute null. Neurons either belong on one side of the null or the other; they "belong" either to one neuronal assembly or the other. They do not get to equivocate in between.
This kind of segregation in frequency space must not be easy to carry off. If nature does it anyhow, despite the difficulty, we can only assume that it must be very important. We can also see how this might go badly wrong, given the incredible precision that attaches to this kind of neuronal organization. Or the organization may be compromised under some circumstances and not others, leading to episodic dysfunction.
Looking at the EEGs of lots of people makes it clear that in all of the above cases the neuronal organization is transient. The brain brings the neuronal assembly into existence only for as long as it is needed to perform its function, and then the entity either dissipates or it is actively dismantled by the brain. The more we get to witness the brain at work, the more it is apparent to us that the brain leaves very little to chance in the matter of its neuronal resources. There is also some direct evidence that the neuronal assemblies are as actively deconstructed as they were actively constructed in the first place. This process too could be subject to failure in the compromised brain.
Finally, there is the large issue of assuring that communication takes place between the relevant brain regions. If the organization of our neuronal resources is frequency-based, then an overall coordination must exist in the domain of frequency between communicating brain regions. This would seem to be an even tougher requirement to meet than the constraints on organization locally. And so it is.
With this first cut at what may be the real issues, we can suggest how these might relate to the classic autism symptoms. We have argued that the global communication relationships may be more vulnerable than the local ones. This fits with the prevailing view of autism, where we can often see highly-developed, or at least appropriately-developed function in a variety of aspects, but we see a dearth of "integration" by the child of all these disparate realities into one "narrative." We can only assume that the child's view of his or her own reality is somewhat fragmented or stunted. We can even argue that the core issue in autism at the functional level is "integration deficit disorder." Now we even have a way of modeling this in terms of the communication behavior of the neuronal assemblies, where it is typically talked about as a "connectivity deficit."
The term "connectivity deficit" may focus us on the key issue, but the term itself is not very revealing as to the precise nature of the deficit. We can try to think of examples from real life. If bad weather hangs over Chicago in winter, flights will be delayed, leading to a "connectivity deficit" that propagates to other airports around the country within hours. More and more people miss their connections, and the problem compounds. Flight schedules need to be kept to within twenty minutes at least in order for the transportation "network" to function as intended.
In the case of European rail transport, trains have to arrive within two or three minutes of schedule in order for the network to function as intended, or else we end up with another "connectivity deficit." In the case of our own cortex, global communication needs to be predictable at the level of 10 to 20 milliseconds in order for the network to function as a globally integrated network. In the obvious case of a problem with white matter "myelination," the neuronal sheathing that speeds up neuronal transmission, this criterion may be satisfied locally but not globally. The result may be the classic autistic symptoms in which the nervous system is confronted with a kaleidoscopic play of detail that forever lacks context.
When it comes to context within which we make sense of our world, nothing is more primary than our own emotions. Experience is immediately related somehow to issues of self, and this relationship is mediated by our emotions. Am I at risk? Should I be interested? Do I really care? Our emotions are as central to our experience as the musical soundtrack is to a film. It is difficult for us even to conceive of that dimension of our experience not being in play. By being ubiquitously involved in all of our experience, our emotional responding is realized through neuronal networks that are highly integrative in character. When this circuitry is off-line or dysfunctional, then we cannot be "in our bodies," our "self" cannot be actualized, and we cannot experience life in relationship to others.
I apologize at this point for seeming to reduce our exquisite emotional repertoire to the mere workings of resonant neuronal networks. This is of the same order as talking about Yitzhak Perlman's exquisite violin tones in terms of violin strings and an ash violin case set to vibrating with mere horsehair. The music is not reducible to its mechanical description, but the description is valid nonetheless. Thus it is with our emotions. Our description cannot "contain" them, but we cannot have them without the architecture of the brain, on the one hand, and suitable education of our emotional responding, on the other.
So we come finally to the good news, which is that the circuitry of our brains can be trained to function better, and that finding holds also for those things that come closest to defining us to ourselves---our emotions, beliefs, and even our core self. The reality we experience about ourselves is all held either in chemistry for long-term storage or in resonant networks for direct access. Both are alterable through the mechanisms of "brain plasticity."
We have not found a single deficit among those typically associated with autism that does not respond at some level to brain training. As we find our way with various training techniques, we have already reached the point where brain-training might well be the quickest means toward higher functionality in the child. That then lays the groundwork for all of the other techniques and remedies that should also be brought to bear.
Autism: The Integration Deficit Disorder
The story on autism is at once highly promising and depressingly grim. The promising part is that the condition is coming to be understood and so remedies are forthcoming. The grim part has to do with the recognition that this is entirely a man-caused disease. Nature did not conspire against our children in this case. We did so inadvertently, but the mistakes we made are being propagated forward by default and also by design. And therein lies the scandal. We can lay the blame for continuing autism epidemic at the feet of the Centers for Disease Control, of the Food and Drug Administration, of the National Institutes of Health, and of Big PhRMA. Even the Environmental Protection Agency does not entirely escape blame.
Some decades ago an autistic child was brought to the Harvard Medical School and the Chair summoned the class of medical students and urged them all to become acquainted with this case. He said to them: "You may never have a chance to see another case like this in your entire career." Decades later, the incidence of autism in male children has risen to 1% in this country, and a recent paper in the premier Journal Lancet reported incidence to be 2% among boys in Great Britain. That's the country that tried to discredit Roger Wakefield, MD for suggesting that the country's vaccination policy was a contributing cause in the epidemic.
Right now autism looks like a very complex disease, but at least it is now clear that it is in fact a medical disease and not just a genetically caused mental disorder. But if autism is looked at as a disease, it must also be acknowledged that diseases in general tend to look complex only when they are not yet understood. If one looked at diabetes, for example, without knowing that insulin was involved as the key player, it would also look exceedingly complex indeed.
So more than likely it is merely the expression of the disease process in the body and mind that is complex in autism. The underlying disease causative agent may be simple. It is mercury. We have been poisoning our children with mercury. We have done it deliberately; we have done our best to exonerate the practice in the face of damning evidence; and we are continuing to do it. This may turn out to be the most egregious medically caused disaster in the history of medicine, worse than when surgeons failed to wash their hands prior to surgery and as many as ten percent of women in childbirth died at their hands of childbed fever in certain hospitals.
And what has been the response? Drug companies are doing their best to insulate themselves legally from the coming liability storm through their hired guns in state legislatures. At the same time, studies that could fill in the blanks on this hypothesis, such as studying those children who have not been exposed to mercury in vaccines as a comparison group, are not being undertaken.
Mercury is the most toxic element in the periodic table, outside of the radioactive elements like plutonium. It is used as a preservative in vaccines for precisely this reason. Mercury is hostile to life itself. The reader may have been under the impression that Thimerosal was being removed from vaccines for children. Look again. Thimerosal is back in the flu vaccines, and the dose of mercury contained in them exceeds our EPA exposure limits for body sizes less than that of Shaquille O'Neill. Yet infants are given the same size dose as O'Neill.
Recently, a drug trial in the U.K. caused illness within 90 minutes among all six participants. Attention was immediately drawn to the test, and in retrospect the experimental design was labeled "botched." But what if the adverse response occurred only in a certain genetically vulnerable subgroup, at a rate of perhaps one in a thousand? The effect might not have been noticed at this point, and perhaps not even as larger trials were conducted.
And what if the vaccines to which children were exposed turned out to be quite safe when tested individually at the outset? And then thimerosal was added later when vaccines were combined into multiple doses. And then the vaccination schedule was majorly accelerated for infants, thus compounding the problem. And what if not everyone were vulnerable to the same degree? One could end up with a problem that was not apparent at each step along the way. Do we not then have an innocent explanation of how we got to this point?
Actually not. After all, it has been assumed all along that autism has a genetic component. That assumption alone invalidates all epidemiological studies of thimerosal toxicity effects based on whole populations (that is to say, under the assumption that the population is homogeneous in terms of susceptibility to mercury toxicity). We might have one reaction if we were told as parents, "there is a part in ten-thousand risk of a functional impact" on a child given this vaccine. We might have quite a different reaction if we were told, "there is a ten percent risk of functional impact" of this vaccine in a vulnerable population. We would then clearly want to know if our child is in that vulnerable population. We are having that same discussion now with regard to certain genetic pre-dispositions to breast cancer. This is something that one can explain to a ten-year-old. How is it that the CDC has a problem understanding this?
Believe it or not, one member of this medical conspiracy actually verbalized the question somewhat as follows, "If thimerosal is a problem, why then isn't everyone that gets it becoming autistic?" People with an MD cannot be that naïve. It is just not conceivable. One must suspect something worse. They are being deliberately obfuscatory.
Having fingered mercury toxicity as the problem (the evidence is available with help from your trusty servant named Google), we must hasten immediately to enlarge our horizon. Just as a child may tolerate an individual dose of vaccine and still succumb to the cumulative impact of many such doses over the first couple of years of life, so it is with mercury in general. It may be the tall pole in the tent when it comes to heavy metal toxicity, but it does not stand alone as a culprit, and vaccines do not stand alone either. The FDA failed to warn pregnant women in a timely manner about mercury in tuna fish, so a particular infant may already be starting out life with a toxic body burden of mercury because its mother thought she was doing a good thing by eating lots of fish. And a variety of heavy metals are becoming problems to our immune system integrity, not just mercury.
So the mercury-laced vaccines may serve simply as "the straw that breaks the camel's back" at the end of an accumulation of environmental insults to our biological system. This needs to be understood in big-picture sense, and that is not what research does well at all. Such studies need to be quite large to cover all the relevant variables; they need to extend over a long period of time; and they need to have participants that are exceedingly well characterized. This is hugely expensive. Absent such large-scale studies, there is lots of opportunity for the experts to fuzz up the evidence and render it innocuous if they so choose. In the face of complexity, the conspirators can win by mere indirection, by making it appear as if we were looking for one particular blotch in a huge Jackson Pollock painting.
Why is the recitation and recognition of this wretched history important? As long as our medical and governmental leadership is in denial about the underlying problem, it cannot marshal its resources for a remedy. Meanwhile, the emergency of autism is at knocking at our door, one family at a time. It is obvious that a medical disease requires a medical remedy, and lots of these have been proposed and are in the process of being implemented. Each of these techniques targets one or another aspect of the condition. An essential feature of all such approaches is that the outcome is characterized by wide variation over the autistic population. Some children benefit in a major way from one or another of these approaches, others hardly at all. We understand this in terms of a network model of regulatory function. Regulation must be seen as a multiply-connected web, not as a chain. When links in our regulatory regime are degraded, function typically degrades incrementally rather than catastrophically. Similarly, when regulation is restored, function improves incrementally in most cases, although the more isolated dramatic improvements get our attention and convince us that we are on the right track.
With our biomedical approaches, we may have to pursue quite a number of pathways to the restoration of healthy function. All these take time, and they may even have to be properly sequenced. Most are expensive and portend a huge burden on the family. Still, we have to consider ourselves fortunate that we now have a number of techniques that can tackle autism in a kind of pincer movement: biomedical approaches can be seen as "bottom-up" attempts to restore healthy regulation, and the behavioral approaches to autism can be seen as "top-down" methods of restoring function. One targets causal factors, the other the behavioral consequences.
We now have a third major approach that fits somewhere in the middle. It is Neurofeedback, and it targets regulation directly. Whereas the behavioral methods do in time achieve adaptations at the brain level, they do so indirectly. And the biomedical approaches are largely judged on the basis of how they impinge on brain function. The action is again somewhat indirect. With Neurofeedback we are targeting regulation directly. Neurofeedback is basically a behavioral technique, but the brain is seen as the behaving entity rather than the child. So we have advanced from a pincer movement against autism to Chinese fingers-a three-armed attack.
Just as we try to hone the child's behavioral repertoire with behavior-shaping techniques, we can try to hone the brain's behavior at the EEG level. We watch the neuronal dance and we shape its behavior toward better function. So even though we know that the "real" problem has its origin in our physiology, we can still affect the functional impact by direct brain training. In this approach, we take advantage of the fact that we all have considerable functional plasticity available in our brains, and that holds true even for the autistic child.
Moreover, even if the "problem" in autism may have started out with a mercury insult, it then metastasizes (in the poetic sense of that word) and becomes an issue in many regulatory systems. So at some point, even if the mercury were to be removed from the body we would still contend with lingering functional deficits. The disregulation will have been encoded in the cerebral networks, among others, and these will just have to be retrained.
We have recently made some significant breakthroughs in restoring function in autistic children with Neurofeedback, and we are aware of similar progress being made in other clinics with a variety of Neurofeedback techniques. Also, university-based research has begun on Neurofeedback in application to the autistic spectrum. The intent here is not to dwell on these results-exciting as they are-in this article. Rather, we want to point out an emerging set of converging evidence in order to illuminate what is going on more at the conceptual level.
Increasingly we are hearing reports of good results in functional recovery being obtained with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). As the data started piling up on this emerging technique, it was shown that benefits could even be derived with modest over-pressure of 1.3 atmospheres, rather than with the 2 atmospheres or more than are used with wound healing and recovery from brain injury. Most recently, we are hearing of gains being achieved even in regular pressurized air, rather than with the use of oxygen under pressure. This makes the technique categorically safe and accessible to the individual clinician. It is even accessible for home use.
There is a third technique that needs to be mentioned in this regard, and it is called "Hemoencephalography," or HEG. This refers to a biofeedback technique in which the brain is rewarded for enhanced oxygenation or for enhanced cortical temperature. In either of these implementations, this technique can be seen as activating the frontal lobe of the brain. And both show nice functional gains in most autistic children with a modest number of training sessions.
In fact, the functional gains shown by each of these techniques falls into the range of 1-3% improvement in symptom expression per session over the first twenty to forty sessions. The gains start out at the higher end of the range, and then end up at the lower end. These sessions can be spaced as little as a day apart, so we have here three options by means of which parents can get quick help for their child and indirectly also for the whole family.
We know of no other approaches for which gains can be so systematically projected as with these. So parents might very well want to put one of these techniques high on their priority list, even in the knowledge that the biomedical approaches should not be given short shrift-not even if the activation procedures are wildly successful. This presents a real dilemma for parents because many of the biomedical methods-such as the gluten-free and casein-free diets-are rather burdensome to pursue. But we see no alternative.
This also speaks to the broad gray area in which siblings (and the parents who read this) may not be overtly autistic, but with shared genetic endowment may still be functioning below the level of which their systems are capable. The autistic children in this sense are our species' canaries, the most genetically vulnerable cohort to certain environmental insults that none of us can evade and to which none of us is immune. Those who share common genetics with the autistic child might do well also to consider cleaning up their lifestyle as well as doing Neurofeedback.
The common element among all three approaches (HBOT, HEG, and EEG Neurofeedback) is that they serve to activate the brain in general, and the frontal lobe in particular. But then each of the techniques also has its particularities. Neurofeedback can be done in a manner that is highly targeted toward specific functional deficits, such as emotional connection to others, the capacity for communication, speech articulation, sensory excitability, motor function, etc. HEG can also be locally targeted, but it tends to be more oriented toward pre-frontal brain activation generally. Hyperbaric oxygen can best be understood in terms of activation of neural circuitry, but the temporarily heightened oxygen level in the tissues may also have some direct beneficial biological effects.
This is a matter of some controversy because one of the identified hazards in autism is oxidative stress, for which anti-oxidants need to be provided. What sense does it make to supply excess oxygen to such a system? It would probably not make sense at all in the steady state, but as a transient procedure it might very well be helpful. The transient flood of oxygen into the tissues may allow the engagement and activation of neural circuitry that then remains accessible and engaged even after normal oxygenation levels return.
So we can think of each of these approaches as providing the common element of an activation procedure, and then there are also aspects that differentiate between them. These techniques can also be combined, and this is a research goal for the future. A child in a hyperbaric chamber may present a Neurofeedback training opportunity beyond what is usually available. Or EEG Neurofeedback can be used to follow up on a "priming" session with HEG Neurofeedback. Alternatively the child might be asked to enhance the HEG signal while in the hyperbaric chamber in order to derive the maximum benefit.
On the other hand, it may turn out that we should enhance brain activation as much as possible without resort to the delivery of excess oxygen, and to limit the exposure to the latter only to the duration necessary to derive whatever specific benefits are in store. All this is speculation at this point.
One can also envision a hierarchy of approaches in which one moves gradually from the less demanding to the more demanding ones. One starts with HEG training to "prime the pump" and one moves on to EEG Neurofeedback. This HEG training can be administered trivially in the home on a daily basis, complemented by EEG Neurofeedback done under in a clinical setting at a rate of one to five sessions per week. The two techniques support and complement each other. Improved regulation ensues, and the whole physiology functions with more integrity because the brain is also involved in the regulation of visceral function.
Then, as the benefits of HEG plus EEG Neurofeedback begin to plateau, one adds in the hyperbaric oxygen to see if there is further incremental benefit. If so, then one moves on to combine hyperbaric with EEG training in situ for yet greater gains. The EEG or HEG training instrument can be taken right into the chamber without difficulty. Finally, the parents are instructed in home-use EEG Neurofeedback for long-term enhancement of brain function. Biochemical approaches are used in addition to achieve new milestones in functionality.
In sum, then, we are at the threshold of a very positive future for autistic children. The watchword always needs to be "progress, not perfection." We never know how far these techniques will take us with a particular child. But at every level of a child's function, we know that substantial gains are within our reach. Under the prevailing conditions alluded to above, the whole approach to the autism spectrum has a bewildering and almost over-whelming complexity at the moment. It cannot be otherwise. Even worse, as long as the government agencies are tethered to the assumption that mercury is not the issue, they cannot lead the charge toward an understanding of the remedies, as already suggested.
This has left autism recovery to various brilliant and inventive scientists, researchers, and practitioners out in the field. A substantial body of knowledge has already been accumulated over the last decade. It is not a criticism to point out that most such researchers are narrowly focused on their particular remedy. That being the case, an integrative perspective is still missing. One could even say that the treatment regime for the autism spectrum exhibits some autistic features! Hence parents are left with the unenviable role of sorting all this out and prioritizing remedies for their child. We have no choice. It is premature to be authoritative about what is to be done in a particular case and in what order, although initial attempts are being made now along those lines. So for the time being the decision-making of necessity falls largely to parents.
Ironically, it is the integrative perspective that is also missing within the autistic child. Neurofeedback intrinsically addresses itself to communication relationships within the neuronal networks, so it directly targets what may be the key functional deficit in autism at the brain level. Within the treatment community, Neurofeedback may similarly provide a missing perspective on the deficits of functional integration and provide the needed conceptual linkage between the biomedical and the behavioral remedies. Both at the level of the child and at the level of the treatment community, Neurofeedback may provide the answer to the observed "Integration Deficit Disorder." - Siegfried Othmer, Ph.D
Case Report:
A Clinical Vignette for the Autism Spectrum:
The following is an excerpt from a delightful new book on neurofeedback. It is titled "The Healing Power of Neurofeedback," by psychologist Stephen Larsen.
The story relates to a child called Matt in the book, who was referred for neurofeedback at the age of eight with a diagnosis of autism. The following was related by Curtis Cripe, who worked with Matt at his Crossroads Institute in Cave Creek, Arizona.
"The first session consisted of working with [the midline] sites (which are located between the two hemispheres) to balance and normalize his cortical activity. After the first few sessions, I switched to working with multiple sites. within each session. After a certain number of sessions it was seen that Matt no longer exhibited the autistic behaviors. After another ten, it was evident that he was visibly maturing. By session twenty, Matt was placed in a mainstream classroom with peers and he was able to work within the parameters of that setting. By thirty sessions, his improving grades reflected his further maturation and development.
Today, after twelve months under this program's protocols, Matt's diagnosis of autism has been removed. He is in mainstream fourth grade, with his grades in the As and Bs. He has developed and maintained school friendships, and is included in school functions and extracurricular social functions. Matt will graduate with flying colors from our program after a total of fifty sessions." (p.152)
A Mother's Report on Autism:
"My child is a 12 year old girl diagnosed at 2 1/2 with autism. We believe that she was born autistic. She was always angry, frustrated and very much kept to herself. We have completed 70 sessions of Neurofeedback and she is like a different child. She gives us more eye contact; her anger and frustration have disappeared!! She seldom talked before and stayed in her room most of the time. She has started talking more and gesturing less. She joins in with the family more and is able to be around crowds or family gatherings. She usually slept a couple of hours per night but now sleeps all night. We are very pleased with Neurofeedback and wish we had known about it sooner."
Neurofeedback practitioner Jon Cowan reports:
"Each case is individual, and "miracles" do happen. My first case of(triply-diagnosed) autism, back in the mid-90s, was an absolute cure. She became a "chatty Kathy", annoying some folks by talking so much! She graduated as valedictorian of her high school class and went on to college. All with just 28 sessions."
Sense and Nonsense on Autism: Beyond Genetics
"Autism is currently, in our view, the most important and the fastest-evolving disorder in all of medical science and promises to remain so for the foreseeable future." - Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman, chairman of the department of psychiatry at Columbia University's school of medicine.
A few months back David Kirby (author of the book "Evidence of Harm") interviewed Katy Wright about her autistic child Christian, and more specifically the recovery that he was beginning to make with biomedical treatments that have been developed over the years by the MDs and Ph.D.s involved with the organization Defeat Autism Now (DAN). (http://www.autismmedia.org/media15.html)
Read more about "Sense and Nonsense about Autism: Beyond Genetics" on the EEG Info Newsletter...
Related EEG Info Newsletter Articles:
Oxidative Stress in Autism
Autism: The Integration Deficit Disorder
Autism and Emotionality
"Artistes and Autistes"
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