I am responding to the article on Autism in this month’s Los Angeles Magazine.

I was so thrilled to see your obvious commitment to educating readers about the necessary holistic approaches for the treatment of this epidemic.

As a holistic health practitioner and author, I have been recognized as a leading expert in the field of Behavioral/Neurodevelopment Optometry and Vision Therapy for than twenty-five years.  I have developed an innovative method called Developmental Learning Program (DLP), a revolutionary approach that offers alternatives to families and children who suffer from all types of learning and behavioral disabilities including children and adults diagnosed in the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

My intention has been to offer holistic therapies and help people understand them and use them to make their lives better. I have helped over 5,000 families using a combination of holistic therapies that have been very supportive and have helped patients function in a more neurotypical way.  Understanding each child is like solving a puzzle.  It requires a combination of science, intuition and spirit while working with the child and the family as a unit.   Together we look at levels of health that involve the interweaving of physical, emotional, spiritual and psychological aspects.

I have utilized a Neuro-Developmental philosophy, which means that I assess and compare the child’s chronological age to the developmental performance age and enter with interventions at the child’s developmental age.  For example, if a 7 year old has not extinguished his primitive survival reflex patterns and the school is pushing for tutoring math and reading, the child is not going to progress.  It is far better to meet the child where he is developmentally than to try to force him to function at the “expected chronological” age level.

If heavy metals are found in the patient’s system in a lab test, chelation therapy may create more stress if a child’s immune and detoxification systems are depleted.  Instead, using other forms of detoxification processes that are gentler can not only help release toxins from the body but also boost one’s immune system at the same time.  We must quit giving shot gun approaches and really assess the variety of risk factors and treat each child on an individual basis.

As discussed in your powerful article, the current dogma  that says “the window”  for sensory motor processing has to be acquired in the first three or four years of a child’s life or it will never be acquired is not true.  I am so glad that the writer persevered!  The brain has enough plasticity (even in adults) so that sensory motor processing can be acquired.

We must recognize that any type of birth trauma such as inducing birth, C-Section, Forceps Delivery, or Fetal Distress affects neurological development.  Manual therapies like Craniosacral Therapy can help release birth traumas that can stimulate a child’s motor and cognitive processes.

One may posit that long-term molecular approaches like drug therapies disconnect the child from mind-body integration.  Subtle Energy Therapies like light/color/sound/homeopathy, essential oils, flower essences, herbs  can have a supportive and positive effect on children with ASD.  I use Electrophotonic Imaging, a Science and  Mathematical Russian technology that monitors the biofields where we can see many imbalances before physical symptoms occur.  I can monitor what subtle energies are working and fine tune what is the best treatment modality based on the biofield measurements.

And finally on vaccinations, we are in the beginning stages of all the biological mechanisms and genetic factors involved in vaccine-induced, Neuro-immune dysfunction that can cause autism in some children.  We all must make a commitment to explore how exposure or lack of exposure to viral and bacterial infections and environmental toxins interact with vaccines and genetic factors to increase chronic disease and disability risks for children.

The key to prevention and successful treatment of autism lies with the scientists and doctors with vision and integrity who will conduct research that will answer questions that remain about the disorders on a patient-by-patient basis.