Related Reading

Gut and Psychology Syndrome  by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD

As a parent of a child diagnosed with learning disabilities, Dr. Campbell-McBride utilized her medical knowledge, especially her training in neurology and nutrition, to help other families deal with these issues.  Dr. Campbell-McBride explains the connection between the functioning of the digestive tract and the immune systems and how this affects our neurology.  The main focus of her approach is restoring the flora balance of the digestive tract through the use of diet and probiotics.  The book is informative, explaining the nutritional biochemical connections with psychiatric and neurological disorders and gastrointestinal function.  She offers specific guidelines for diet and supplements that help to address these gut issues.  She begins the book with an open letter to the parents of children on the autism spectrum, discussing research on autism and her beliefs on the subject. 

The Body Ecology Diet by Donna Gates is a good companion to this book.

Enzymes for Autism and other Neurological Conditions  by Karen DeFelice

Karen DeFelice utilizes her background in science and her family’s own struggles with neurological issues to explain the use of digestive enzymes in treating issues such as sensory integration, migraines, ADHD, PDD/Asperger, immune system functioning, yeast/bacteria and bowel dysfunctions.

DeFelice recounts her direct experience using digestive enzymes to treat her own and her children’s behavioral and health issues.  She offers easy-to-understand explanations of the role enzymes play in healing the digestive tract and the various ways gut disorders affect our behavior and neurology.  The book includes specific guidelines for choosing an enzyme product as well as how to begin an enzyme therapy for children and adults.  This book is a good introduction to the use of enzymes.  DeFelice has two follow-up books that deal with enzymes:  Enzymes for Digestive Health and Nutritional Wealth:  The Practical Guide for Digestive Enzymes  and Enzymes:  Go with Your Gut:  More Practical Guidelines for Digestive Enzymes.

What’s Going on in There? By Lise Eliot, Ph.D.

While Dr. Eliot, a research neuroscientist, delivers an extremely in-depth look at brain development from conception, she is able to present this complex, scientific topic to parents and caregivers in such a way that we may understand the biology of the brain as well as our role in influencing its development.   Eliot’s impressive credentials are clearly evident in her comprehensive look at what science knows about the developing brain and mind, but her role as the parent of three young children equally influence her presentation of the material. 

Too Loud Too Bright Too Fast Too Tight by Sharon Heller, Ph.D.

Sharon Heller eloquently describes life for those dealing with what she terms “sensory defensiveness”.   Sensory integration is at the forefront now of many therapies addressing neurodevelopmental issues and Dr. Heller is able to convey the experience of dealing with a sensory system that is assaulted on a continual basis.  She offers a variety of approaches that help deal with sensory defensiveness including a “Sensory Defensiveness Survival Kit”.    While Heller addresses mainly adults who have dealt with these sensory issues most of their lives, while being misdiagnosed with various psychiatric issues, the book allows us to understand more clearly those who struggle with overwhelming sensations from their body and environment.

Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children by Louise Kuo Habakus

This book feels like a necessity. It assembles a wealth of data, experiences, and conclusions pertaining to the issue of mandatory vaccination policies. The two authors and their many contributors apply legal, moral, and ethical criteria to document in vivid detail – backed by references and charts and photos – why the requirement that we abide by an “official” schedule of vaccinations contradicts an interest in human health and well-being. My only problem with the book is its subtitle, because it all but guarantees that only the proverbial choir will read it. The 2011 copyright is by the Center for Personal Rights, Inc.; the publisher is Skyhorse Publishing Company. This rational rejection of a mandatory vaccination policy does not limit itself to the controversy around whether there’s a “causal” relationship to autism; this book includes adult inoculations too, including flu and HPV vaccines, and among the contributors is a retired U.S. Air Force medic who discusses how enlisted men and women fall victim to the policy.  We don’t need to take “sides” in the debate; we need to consider the issues, armed with the information jammed into this one thorough, authoritative book.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

The author offers a distinct point-of-view presentation of a teenager diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, his mother, and his brother; also the voice of a police detective and an attorney, who seem to me to speak community attitudes, notably ignorance, and how willingness to understand can bridge differences. None of these fictional characters “represents” the respective role I just gave them here; and Picoult does an excellent job of having each speak from his and her own experiences. To me each seemed painfully real. (I listened to the audio book; possibly that made it more emotionally difficult, to “hear” those voices.) For being able to achieve that, I commend the author and recommend the book to anyone willing to crawl inside the mind of someone on the spectrum, that person’s sibling and that person’s parent, and maybe to identify with those in the community, too. Each acts in accord with the “evidence” as interpreted through respective filters.