Alternative Therapies and further information.

Fish Oils Following on from a successful experiment with the Equazen 'eye q' fish oil supplement which was conducted by some very good friends of ours (details here) we have decided to try this out with Zoe. After a few weeks into the trial we saw a couple of examples of contextual speech and other comments which only her parents could ever really appreciate as being of such significance. Zoe does now have the ability to refer to herself in the first person as opposed to the third person for which we have become accustomed for the last 9 years. We started this trial on the 29th of August 2006. The product purchased was the 200ml Vanilla flavoured liquid, as pictured on the left of this page. Our initial observations will follow here as they are made: We are trying to put a balanced view across and it is important for you to read all the way down this page as we have added updates as the months have gone by with the most recent updates at the bottom of the page.

Day 1 - Zoe does not like the taste, saying "No, it's naughty!"
Day 35 - Zoe is taking this without any complaint and even makes a joke of it.
Day 87 - We are noticing clearly defined changes in Zoe's behaviour. Please scroll down this page.
Day 225 - We have decided to reduce the amount of treatment in line with recommended daily intake. (See below)
Day 260 - Zoe is still taking the product, we can report that Zoe is doing well and is a happy and contented child.

Now, we are of course aware that it is not possible to say with 100% accuracy that the eye q product is helping Zoe or even to clinically prove that it has helped our friend's child. However, notwithstanding this we as her parents, can see the changes in Zoe. If you would like to know more about this product please read up on the products from Equazen the makers of eye q.

What we have agreed upon is that there is no such thing as a magic cure all for autism. What Nicki does every day with Zoe is truly brilliant as she works with our child, helping Zoe to perform basic functions which help Zoe to normalise her behaviour in a gentle and relaxed manner. Nicki takes Zoe through her schedule on a daily basis and we have now reached a point where our child will complain if we have missed out on one of her daily tasks.

Whilst on this subject it is worth mentioning that we called upon the school for support during a particularly difficult time and found that the speech and language therapist was immensely helpful in working with us to establish a routine for Zoe and to produce a book of activities which we now call "choosing time". This activity looks at these types of play activities Interactive - Creative - Musical - Solitary - Symbolic Play - Role Play. Nicki will expand upon this in due course and we would ask that you check back for an update on this structured play.

We have found that behavioural intervention can pay huge dividends and seeking advice from the school, National Autistic Society or local support groups is both constructive and absolutely not a sign of parental failure.

Update - October 2006

We have now been giving Zoe the eye q treatment for 6 weeks and we have seen few changes. This may be because a) I am hard to convince and b) we are so close that we might perhaps miss the subtle changes that someone else would pick up on.

However, autistic children sometimes do things that catch you by surprise and this is no exception. Autism is described as the "Triad of impairments" (Dr Lorna Wing) of social interaction, communication and imagination. Imagination is certainly a factor with our daughter as she has ignored all of her symbolic play toys. These include her dolls house and her baby doll, which has lain dormant for the last two years until last night when Zoe dragged out the dolly, put her in her bed, wrapped the covers over and kissed her goodnight. These pictures were taken on the 12th of October 2006. immediately prior to this Zoe had kissed the dolly on the top of her head and hugged her.

Following on from this on Sunday 15th of October Zoe sat watching Thomas the Tank Engine. After a while she grabbed a large hat and a black cloak which had been made for a school play for Zoe's older brother. Having put these on, Zoe insisted we call her the Fat Controller and wanted everyone to see her. This is another significant change, as Zoe has never exhibited this type of role play behaviour before.

At this point we should remind anyone reading this that we most definitely cannot state with any certainty that the eye q product is responsible for these milestones. The idea of this page and in many ways of this whole web site, is to put our perspective across. This is how we see things but we should caution our audience that anything that is taken to help with autism is not necessarily going to help with every child and in many cases is without empirical evidence. We are witnessing a change - but we are not blinkered and we will see how things develop over the next few months.

Update - November 2006

This picture was taken 23rd November 2006. You can see the dolls/ bears in their beds. Zoe has a keen interest in the story of Goldilocks and the three bears which we have to read at bedtime every single night. After getting home from school we heard Zoe complaining in her playroom. Mum found her in her playroom in front of her dolls house. Mum asked Zoe "what's the matter ? " to which Zoe replied "I can't find it , ask Zoe" (Note that she refers to herself in the third person, this is typical of autistic children, and Zoe often switches between the first person "I" and the third person "Zoe" see theory of mind below. ) Mum said "What have you lost" and Zoe replied "the toilet". Mum realised that Zoe was referring to the doll's wooden toilet which was behind Zoe at the time. Having given Zoe the toilet , Zoe promptly sat her doll on the toilet. Mum asked "what is dolly doing?" and Zoe replied "a wee wee" following on from this, Zoe made her doll stand at the wooden basin and pretend to wash it's hands. Zoe then proceeded to put on her 'Fat Controller' cloak and play with her Playstation.

The significance of this may not be fully appreciated unless one has a good understanding of autism. Autistic children have "difficulty in the development of interpersonal play and imagination, for example having a limited range of imaginative activities, possibly copied and pursued rigidly and repetitively" (National Autistic Society web site) link here.

In short, they don't do solitary / symbolic play - as they lack the imagination and theory of mind to engage themselves. Nicki has just asked me to point out that we have also made some fundamental changes to both Zoe's playroom and our living room - both of which she has taken in her stride. We would not have got away with this 6 months ago.

Going by recent events it is becoming more difficult to rule out the effects of the eye q product - our child is changing - before our eyes and for the better. It would be nice to get some feedback on this - have you tried fish oil supplements and have you any comments to add? If so please get in touch through our contacts page.

UPDATE - December 2006

This week we attended Zoe's school for her annual review. This review appraises her current educational provision in terms of appropriateness and suitability. In addition her statement is reviewed and past, present and future objectives are reviewed. During this meeting we were advised that Zoe has been making significant improvements over the last couple of months in terms of her concentration and ability to keep to task.

The school have given us some very good advice and we are working very closely with them to help our daughter. We are hoping that our collective efforts to draw Zoe into our world will work in tandem with the fish oil to show some level of improvement. We do not expect a cure but then, no-one is promising that.

UPDATE - January 2007

Christmas happened. Ok and... well if you have a child who shows little or no interest in opening her presents and really couldn't give a monkey about christmas you would see the relevance here when your child rips open all of her presents and squeals with delight when she discovers her gifts. This is also the first year where Zoe has been able to tell us what she wanted for christmas. Then Mugwump happened. What is a Mugwump? well that is a monkey which Zoe's uncle bought her which moves and makes lots of monkey noises. Zoe sits for ages feeding and petting this monkey which she christened straight away on Boxing day 2006.

UPDATE - April 2007

The biggest problem with this alternative therapy is that you never really know if it is having any effect. It is not like a physical skin condition, where you can see an improvement before your eyes. Zoe does continue to come out with some positive comments and it is a really hard call to make. As I am typing this Zoe just announced that as mummy was poorly daddy could take her swimming. This is out of character for Zoe as she does not normally display this level of constructive reasoning. To put this into context, Zoe's speech in 99.9% echoic, (repetition of something she has heard before, usually from a book or television program).

We are now cutting the daily dose down from three 5ml spoonfuls per day to one. This is in line with the guidance from the manufacturer and we will update this page again in due course.

UPDATE - May 2007

It is always difficult to assess if the product is having any positive effect upon our daughter's mental health. We are not seeing any significant changes and it is very hard to tell what changes are happening as a result of the positive intervention form the truly brilliant special needs staff at our daughter's school, what is down to natural development and what may be caused by Eye Q product. t this point in time, we are still giving Zoe the Eye Q supplement but we are reviewing this and we will update this page very soon.

UPDATE - November 2007

We are still giving our daughter the supplement. Although we cannot be 100% certain that it is helping we do feel that we have to try every avenue to try to break through into our daughter's world. In many ways we have actually succeeded as Zoe is much more communicative and we do feel that we are better able to tell when Zoe is just repeating phrases (echoic) or actually in distress. We do manage Zoe's diet - she has regular cooked meals with the family and we don't eat junk food so that could also be a factor.

UPDATE - December 2007

Zoe has changed schools and we have survived this transition with remarkable ease. We do continue to supply the supplement to our daughter and we see no reason why this should change.

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