Is ASD caused by trauma? Can it be ‘fixed’ forever?

amother

Darkblue ↓

Fri, Nov 08 2024, 1:30 am

I work with mainstreamed special needs.
I really strongly believe that you have to look forwards not backwards. If there are skills lacking, trauma etc now, deal with it from here. You cannot relive your life. I have a kid whose mother "rebirthed" her (whatever that means) because she was sure that stress during pregnancy caused her issues.

Yidishkeit has teshuva as an ikar - meaning accepting you made a mistake, regretting it and promising not to do it again. Nowhere does it say that you can go back and relive your life perfectly. That's impossible.

Step number one in helping your child is accepting them. Warts and all. Step number two is loving their differences.

You can't go back and "fix" everything so that it should be perfect. You can move forward from here - a healthier diet, a calm atmosphere, support, therapy and skills. And most important? love and acceptance.

amother

Strawberry

Fri, Nov 08 2024, 2:36 am

There is more and more evidence that ASD is genetic. Some evidence that things like high fever at a young age seem to correlate as well - but more and more research is showing genetic. They have not isolated the gene yet, but they are very close.

There are many things that can help "cure" ASD, but the fact that the "healer" is blaming it on your feelings sounds very Fruedian pseudoscience that has been debunked, and that they are exploiting your situation to make money.

I am all for natural healing BTW - there is a lot of evidence ( anecdotal not studies) of diet and gut health improving symptoms and therapies like ABA and DIR and CBT/DBT can really help. My brother was diagnosed with ASD as a child and today has a successful career, a masters, friends, and reasonable social skills ( he is still slightly "quirky").

amother

Watermelon ↓

Fri, Nov 08 2024, 3:10 am

amother Strawberry wrote:

This! It reminded me a bit (ok, more than a bit) of the refrigerator mom thing from years ago that thankfully was eventually realized to be absolute nonsense.

As a mom of an adult with autism, I will say that these kids aren't "cured" in the way that you mean - they learn new skills, they learn how to better adapt to the world around them, ones who are high enough functioning learn how to mimic what others do and expect, but they are still genetically who they are and have challenges that a so called "normal" kid wouldn't. But each of these kids are so different from each other! One of them may learn to be better at social skills, one better at daily living skills, one better at dealing with overwhelming stimuli - there's a reason it's referred to as a spectrum Wink

One of the best most helpful things I was ever told I was told by a special Ed teacher who at the time was providing services to my son at home (he was little - under 4 for sure and honestly probably younger than that). I asked her if she thought he could ever get married and her answer was an eye opening "would you worry about that at this age if he wasn't autistic?" when I said no, she said "then don't worry about it now!" - and it's true, about things like will they be able to live alone, get a job, have a family, all those big things...if I wouldn't drive myself mad about it for any other kid at this age, why for him? The point is, stop worrying about the long term at this moment, even most of the "how did this happen" won't help you now, unless you stumble upon something that can be cured. Focus on helping him learn new skills and on developing his own skills and strengths.

I am not saying don't look for what will help him the most - we've all btdt, with many of us looking for the unicorn cure, I am just saying enjoy your little one, help him in the best way that you can, and don't let anyone talk you into believing that there was anything you did or didn't do that caused this
Hug

amother

↑ Daisy ↓

Fri, Nov 08 2024, 10:46 am

amother Wandflower wrote:

My son is autistic and I can’t fathom what kind of trauma he could have had. He had the best early attachment from all my kids. I was home with him and nursed him for a long time. Lots of skin to skin, holding him, etc. Everything was perfect. We did testing and were told it’s something genetic that happened at conception. So I don’t think it’s always from trauma.

Do you know which gene? It you know which pathways are affected it can help target treatment.

But fwiw research indicates that the vast majority of kids with asd have clean genetic panels, iow, not a clearcut genetic cause.

[Many of these kids have loads of polymorphisms that affect their ability to detox, absorb nutrients, regulate their immune system etc, but these are not the kinds of genes we talk about when we say someone's autism is genetic]

amother

↑ Daisy ↓

Fri, Nov 08 2024, 10:52 am

amother OP wrote:

Or is it something you live with all your life? Please explain Asd to me in simple words.
- Mom of the previous thread whose child needs to be evaluated for asd.
Thank you
(Also, every person responds to trauma differently. Something about Cerebrospinal fluid in the brain. If you know more about it, please chime in! )

I'm not sure what you mean about cerebrospinal fluid, that sounds like something a craniosacral therapist would know more about.

But even if a traumatic event was the catalyst that sent your child's nervous system into such a fight-flight tailspin that he fits criteria for ASD ever since, you'd still need to address this on a body level.

Whether it is or isn't triggered by trauma, I believe your son can heal. But not via therapy.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Fri, Nov 08 2024, 3:58 pm

amother Daisy wrote:

I appreciate every single response here!

So if therapy won’t heal, I guess it is still necessary to help him be the best he can be. What else is there to do?
The past 2 days he’s been in terrible pain all over like emergency needs X-rays, and I’m not a normal mom for not taking him to the dr! I believe the Anxiety is all part of the package?

amother

DarkYellow

Fri, Nov 08 2024, 4:35 pm

I'm surprised nobody is talking about autoimmune encephalitis. I have two with autism-- one may have been born with it but I didn't see it until 13 months. The other regressed into it at almost 4 years old. A lot of autism could be PANS or PANDAS. We went to THE Pandas specialist in our state who wouldn't even run a Cunningham Panel when the dnase and strep titers came back normal and long term antibiotics did nothing---- he waved it away.... "it's just autism".

Why do brain scans of those with autism look different than those without?

amother

↑ Darkblue ↓

Sat, Nov 09 2024, 12:13 pm

miami85 wrote:

Trauma can cause PTSD which can cause ASD-like symptoms--perseveration, lack of eye contact, poor social skills.

There ARE Dr's who will likely diagnose is as "ASD" because the DSM-5 criteria do not include a "Developmental" or "from birth" component which is more typical of true ASD.

Quoting from the DSM5

C. Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities or may be masked by learned strategies in later life).

amother

↑ Darkblue ↓

Sat, Nov 09 2024, 12:17 pm

amother OP wrote:

You're right. Your job as his mom is to help him be the best he can be.
Accept him for who he is and help him to move forward.

Anxiety is not necessarily part of the package. My ASD son is not anxious at all. Each person is an individual. You need to embrace your son as he is which may include all sorts of different pluses and minuses.

Small piece of advice. SIt down and list all the amazing things about him and keep it with you when you are trying to deal with the tough stuff.

amother

Khaki ↓

Sat, Nov 09 2024, 12:39 pm

Look OP.

ASD is a scary diagnosis. Whenever there is a scary diagnosis people want to protect themselves psychologically. It's subconscious, they don't do it on purpose. But they find all sorts of preventable reasons for the diagnosis, so that if they don't do any of those things, their child is "safe."

I also did that. I breastfed and attachment parented and even had nicely-spaced pregnancies to ensure my kids wouldn't have ASD. And when one of my kids was diagnosed with epilepsy I spent a long time trying to figure out what caused it. All I could come up with was genetics (from my birth family). There simply wasn't anything else (BH for that).

You need to know that the only thing that actually has correlation with ASD, other than genetics, is vitamin D levels prenatally. That's it. Vitamin D levels correlate with oxytocin levels and with ASD diagnoses. I could get into this but it's long and most people will get nothing from it, so there's no point in detailing it here.

Vaccinations don't cause ASD, trauma doesn't cause ASD. Genetics do. Throughout the ages there have been ND families and NT families, we didn't call it that but the NT families married other NT families and the ND families married other ND families. And there were those who weren't functional enough to marry at all.

Trauma can cause symptoms that *look like* ADHD or ASD but then when you solve the trauma the symptoms disappear. That's not ASD, that's trauma. Real ASD isn't curable. Real ASD won't be cured by trauma therapy, but trauma-caused "ASD" symptoms won't be helped by speech therapy, either. Just like needing glasses or hearing aids can cause symptoms that look like ADHD but if you solve the problem the ADHD "disappears," that's not ADHD.

Oh and trauma doesn't mean mom didn't want the pregnancy, that's just a bag of cr*p. You can want a child all you want, if he is ASD then he's going to be ASD and it's present in the first trimester because his brain just develops differently. Proof? Plenty of parents when they find out they are ASD realize that they, their spouse, or their siblings are also ASD. We didn't diagnose it so much when we were kids but today we do diagnose it.

About the diets, ASD is frequently comorbid with other issues (celiac and epilepsy for example), and when you solve an issue so that the child feels better and functions better, then they will feel better and function better. It's not rocket science.

amother

↑ Khaki

Sat, Nov 09 2024, 1:08 pm

miami85 wrote:

That's wrong. The DSM-5 absolutely contains a criteria that symptoms must have appeared early on. (As an earlier poster wrote.) Maybe the parent doesn't recognize it but an experienced practitioner will be able to recognize suspicious signs and ask questions to clarify.

If symptoms don't appear early on then it's unlikely the child will be diagnosed with ASD unless a lot of money changes hands as a bribe. Smile

amother

↑ Wandflower

Sat, Nov 09 2024, 6:30 pm

amother Khaki wrote:

Were a very NT family, no autism anywhere in the picture until we had an autistic kid. So I don’t agree with this at all. We were told it was some kind of genetic mutation. But I wouldn’t consider us an ND family.