Livie is currently 6 years+ with what I would characterize as severe autism. Her main issue is her lack of communication, specifically verbal communication. She had some 50 odd words when she was 15 months old and slowly regressed over 6 months to no words. She has been diagnosed as having apraxia of speech and has ha trouble using her mouth and tongue muscles to form words.
Today, or should I say just before we started this therapy, she had about 6-8 sounds that are word approximations; she has between 18-24 signs for objects/needs and will pull us by the hand and 'throw' our hand and the object of her desire.
We enrolled her in a study at Columbia in NYC to study the brain functions of non verbal autistic children using a Functional MRI. This data should show specifically where the deficits in communication are in the pathways of the brain (need to get specific names of receptive communicative and emotive pathways). She had her fMRI in Nov 08
In addition to this study, we are also going through a doctor who specializes in language therapy to use transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to target the specific areas of the pathways where they might be deficits. This method uses the tDCS in concert with language therapy, specifically passive language therapy, which could probably be construed as a combination play therapy and a sort of Verbal Behavior ABA for language. The technique calls for therapists and us to play with her while she is using the tDCS and try and get verbal interaction to words and phrases given to her in rapid and ever-changing combinations. The idea is to expose her to various ways of saying things and to encourage her to respond without her thinking or feeling that she is in a 'teaching' environment.
I'm going to try and keep a diary of hopefully daily, at least weekly progress reports; changes, additions, behavioral improvements and setbacks. basically a chronical of what we notice and how she progresses.
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