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Keynotes

KEYNOTE: The Microbial Track
There is in the blood of most autistic children-but not in healthy children-DNA sequences that emit, in certain conditions, electromagnetic waves. A therapy first started by a group of independent clinicians and now performed in conjunction with laboratory observations reinforces the idea that systemic bacterial infections play a role in the genesis of symptoms of autism. Our GPs have observed that a long-term therapy consisting of successive antibiotic treatments with accompanying medications induced in 60% of cases a significant improvement-sometimes even a complete resolution of symptoms. Our working hypothesis is that immune dysfunction associated with inflammation of the intestinal mucosa leads to the introduction of bacterial components, including neurotoxins, into the bloodstream, creating oxidative stress as well as microvascularities, especially affecting meningeal vessels and finally specific neuronal damage.
Luc Montagnier, MD

KEYNOTE: Targeting Scientists to Protect Government Policies and Industry Practices
Government agencies, corporations, and academic institutions protect government policies and industry practices by funding supportive scientists and targeting scientists who threaten their interests. Research on autism is being overwhelmed as public health organizations and the pharmaceutical industry control the publication of scientific information. All branches of Government, fraught with their own conflicts of interest, stand idle as corruption of the scientific enterprise abounds.
David L. Lewis, PhD

Biomedical Research and Treatments

Self-Injurious Behaviors in Autism: Causes and Management Options
Approximately 30% of children with autism exhibit some level of self-injurious behaviours, including head banging, blows to the face, biting and scratching. The frequency and severity of these behaviors can be reduced by a range of treatments that address centrally the issue of pain. The speaker will report on how pain should be assessed and addressed biomedically alongside the communication needs of the children using the principles of applied behavior analysis.
Lorene Amet, PhD

Lyme Disease in Autism: Diagnosis and Treatment Options
Lyme disease is often referred as the “Great Imitator” because patients with the disease present with neurological and physical symptoms found in other conditions. The speaker will summarize the knowledge gained in this field from diagnosis to understanding of the pathological processes taking place as well as the naturopathic and antibiotic treatment options available. She will draw parallels between Lyme’s and other chronic infections affecting individuals with autism.
Lorene Amet, PhD

The Thyroid Autism Connection
Dr. Kellman will discuss his groundbreaking discovery that a large percentage of children with autism have an underactive thyroid that is frequently missed by routine tests. Dr. Kellman will show that the proper use of thyroid hormone guided by the results of the TRH test is the most effective treatment for autism.
Raphael Kellman, MD

The Autonomic Nervous System, Hormones, and Stress
Chronic illnesses result in upregulation of the sympathetic nervous system. This can cause symptoms such as hyperactivity, anxiety, attention, and focus difficulties. A chronic fight-or-flight response to stress can also lead to medical issues such as impaired gastrointestinal motility, immune dysregulation, glucose dysregulation, and hormonal imbalances. These issues can be identified and addressed with proper testing, good nutrition, targeted nutraceuticals, and adaptogenic herbs.
Anju Usman, MD

Understanding Why Biomedical and Behavioral Therapies Should be Implemented Together as a Treatment Approach for Autism
Behavioral and biomedical approaches have been used individually for treating children with autism. However, optimization and best possible outcomes can achieved when these two approaches are implemented together. If indicated, biomedical interventions should be utilized concurrently with behavioral therapies in an attempt to stabilize a child's medical conditions and achieve an overall improved state of health. By doing so, a healthier, happier child will be more responsive to therapy.
Lauren Underwood, PhD

Exciting New Developments and Discoveries to Help Autism
Autism represents one of the most challenging disorders to treat and many of use have been frustrated with inadequate responses to a wide variety of interventions. Recent developments in the understanding of calcium channels interacting with vitamin D transporter proteins have opened new pathways to healing and recovery. Case examples of recovered children will be presented.
Jeff Bradstreet, MD

Overview of the Recent Research on Susceptibility, Toxicity, Brain Inflammation, Brain Connectivity, and Regression and Immunizations in ASD
This talk will discuss (1) blood and urinary biomarkers of susceptibility, toxicity, and oxidative stress in ASD from recent collaborative studies, with an emphasis on the clinically available lab testing; (2) some evidenced-based treatments; (3) latest information on brain inflammation in ASD and the role of mercury in the brain's immune system activation, brain inflammation, and brain connectivity; and (4) the results of a recent study of parental reports on regression and immunizations.
Janet K. Kern, PhD

Shining the Light on Sequential Homeopathy: Essential Tools for Recovery and True Healing
If you seek hope this is a must-see for both newcomers and veterans to the topics of homeopathy and ASDs. Homeopathy Center of Houston's founders compare forms of homeopathy, tracing the development of the Houston Homeopathy Method, the only homeopathic method applied to the biomedical model of autism. Life-changing improvements in speech, cognition, sensory issues, aggression, toilet training, sleep, pain and more, including full recoveries will be demonstrated through case narrative.
Cindy Griffin, DSH-P, DIHom, FBIH, BCIH, DCNT and Lindyl Lanham, DSH-P, BCIH, DCNT

FEATURED SPEAKER: Mesenchymal Stem Cell Treatment for ASDs: The Therapeutic Rational and its Future Potential
Following the Witebsky-Rose criteria, we aim to test the hypothesis of ASD as an autoimmune disease. Evidence for the presence of specific immune markers, and the presence of a family history of autoimmune diseases, points to the possibility of an autoimmune etiology. Due to the potent anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and regenerative capacities of mesenchymal stromal stem cells (MSC) and the cumulative clinical experience confirming the safety and efficacy of MSC treatment for various clinical conditions, MSC might open new therapeutic horizons for children with ASD.
Benjamin Gesundheit, MD, PhD

Can the Peptide Neurotensin Connect the Dots and Serve as Novel Target for Autism Therapy?
Serum levels of a peptide called neurotensin were significantly higher in young children with autism. This peptide is unique because it is found in the brain, the gut, and the skin, where it has pro-inflammatory actions. The highest concentration of receptors for neurotensin in the brain is in the diencephalon that controls emotions and in the Broca area that regulates speech. Neurotensin can activate glial cells that contribute to brain inflammation, has cytotoxic actions on neurons, and increases seizure activity in animal models as well as activating mast cells. Blocking the action of neurotensin could serve as a unique therapeutic approach for autism.
Theoharis C. Theoharides, PhD, MD, FAAAAI

A Hidden Cause for the Symptoms of ASD and How To Treat It
Many ASD patients with abdominal pain, gastric burning, irritation, and reflux actually have a well known bacteria that is hard to find and harder to eradicate. Its neurological symptoms include repetitive motor behavior, lack of speech, sleep disturbance, emotional swings, and psychosis. Treat this bacteria, and gastrointestinal and neurological systems function more optimally. In this presentation, I describe the bacteria, the symptoms it causes, its diagnostic indicators, and its treatment.
Nancy Mullan, MD

The Power of Music: Nature's Gift of Speech to Autism
Language is a distinct piece of biological makeup of the brain and develops in a child spontaneously without conscious awareness or a need to be taught. In children with ASD parts of their biological language machines were damaged by autism. We can repair the damage using implicit learning methods a neurotypical infant uses to speak and the power of music. Research using functional MRI suggests that nature has given ASD kids a gift to help recover their non-functioning language brain centers..
Harry Schneider, MD

Biotoxins and Autism
A genetically-susceptible subset of Autistic children can suffer toxic injury to the brain and immune system not only as a result of exposure to heavy metals, but also as a result of exposure to biotoxins such as indoor molds. These toxins activate the immune system, creating a Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS). This lecture presents symptoms of CIRS, an on-line screening test and lab studies. Treatment amplifies the response to both biomedical and behavioral interventions.
Georgia A. Davis, MD

Prenatal and Postnatal Epigenetic Programming (PreP and PEP): Implications for GI, Immune and Neuronal Function in Autism
Oxidative stress and impaired methylation are implicated in causing autism, acting via their epigenetic influence over gene expression. However, fetal and postnatal development rely upon different nutritional resources, each presenting distinctive sources of risk. Dr. Deth will discuss the factors affecting PreP and PEP in the context of neurodevelopment, autoimmunity and gastrointestinal function, each of which contribute to autism spectrum disorders.
Richard C. Deth, PhD

Oxidative Stress, Mitochondrial Hormesis, and Hyperbaric Therapy in Autism
Oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction are fundamental problems in autism. Although known to be damaging, oxidative stress is also an important cellular signal for mitochondria to adapt (mitochondrial hormesis.) Hyperbaric therapy has been shown to be beneficial in the treatment of autism, but its exact mechanism is unclear. This talk examines the effects of hyperbaric therapy on mitochondria and its use in autism and proposes mitochondrial hormesis as a possible mechanism.
Kyle Van Dyke, MD

The Biological Basis of Autism: Causation and Treatment
Important new information will be presented showing how environmental exposures, particularly mercury, are associated with autism; and how targeted therapies, particularly hormonal dysfunction treatment, can improve clinical outcomes in autism.
Mark R. Geier, MD, PhD and David A. Geier

Mending Autism
Dr. Jerry Kartzinel, Board Certified Pediatrician and New York Times Best Selling Author, will present many of the concurrent medical and treatable problems that affect children diagnosed with Autism. He will also present the keys to manage complex issues, including recurrent illness; sleep disruptions; problems with speech, focus, and concentration; and bowel problems such as constipation, diarrhea, and inflammatory bowel disease.
Jerry J. Kartzinel, MD

Interactive Q&A with Leading Physicians and Parents
Join us for a Q&A with a panel of the most published and most successful biomedical experts leading the field of Autism Spectrum Disorders coupled with parents who are actively utilizing biomedical interventions to help their children. Make the most of this rare opportunity and have your questions prepared. You will have the chance to learn from other parents' stories and concern, and have the chance for all these leading physicians weigh in on these issues.
Dan Rossignol, MD, FAAFP; Richard Frye, MD, PhD; David Dornfeld, DO; Kyle Van Dyke, MD and James Neubrander, MD

Holistic Approach to Autism with Allergy and Sensitivities
Many autistic children are sensitive kids. Due to that sensitive natures, the body doesn't respond well to common detoxification therapies. Autism and sensitivity-related illnesses share a common pathogenesis, dysfunctional immune system. In his talk, Dr. Hong reviews current studies on controlling mechanism of immune dysfunction and discusses his experience on treating autistic children with sensitivities using a holistic program of Chinese medicine, homeopathy and other natural therapies.
Harry Hong, PhD, Lac

An Epigenetic Model of Autism and a Warning Regarding Risperdal
It is becoming increasingly clear that autism is epigenetic in nature. A model of autism is presented that explains the non-Mendellian heritability of autism, vulnerability to environmental insults, the regression event, and the persistence of autism symptoms after onset. Risperdal is a psychiatric medication that has been widely used to improve behavioral symptoms in ASD children. Use of this drug for children during a period of rapid brain development is difficult to justify.
William Walsh, PhD

Linking Powerful Pathways to Harness the Remarkable Potential of the Brain of the Child on the Autism Spectrum
In this panel you'll learn about the powerful potential of the brain of the child with autism to heal itself. Bridging their their dynamic, cutting-edge approaches, the speakers will dance between biomedical ways the brain can repair itself and practical, neuroscience-based tools that awaken the brain and elevate it to self-organize and move from the seemingly impossible to the transformational. Experience through brief transformational movement lessons your own brain, body and mind change.
Martha Herbert, PhD, MD and Anat Baniel

The Rationale for Using Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Children on the Autism Spectrum
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has proven to be one of the major treatment modalities I use to help children on the autism spectrum move toward recovery. It is not a magic bullet, but an important adjunctive treatment to other therapies. Though scientific studies as to its effectiveness for children with autism are lacking or present conflicting data, if done consistently, its cumulative benefits can be appreciated, at least to some degree, by the majority of children who use this type of treatment.
James Neubrander, MD

PANS : The Disease Formerly Known as PANDAS a Major and Treatable Cause of Sudden Functional Regression in the Autistic Spectrum Child
PANDAS was initially proposed as a disease entity in the mid-1990's by Dr. Swedo to describe children who developed the sudden onset of obsessive compulsive disorder and/or tics in temporal correlation with strep throat infection. Over time, it has become clear that the PANDAS model is too restrictive and it has been reformulated as Pediatric Acute Neuropsychiatric Syndrome. The author will discuss three children with ASD who experienced sudden and severe functional regression. Tami Giles will present her son's personal story.
Rosario R. Trifiletti, MD, PhD and Tami Giles

Making Sense about Reported Brain Abnormalities in Autism
A review of the brain literature in autism suggests that brain abnormalities of germinal/stem proliferation cells acts as a loci minoris resistentia to different disease processes. In effect, secondary autism caused by tuberous sclerosis, rubella, cytomegalovirus, or associated with premature delivery provide for germinal cell alterations. A better understanding of this underlying process is the first step towards identifying putative risk factors and possibly averting this condition.
Manuel F. Casanova, MD

Cerebral Folate Auto-antibodies in Autism: Testing and Treatment
New data reveals that many children with autism and their parents produce auto-antibodies to a folate receptor, which can lead to a condition called Cerebral Folate Deficiency (CFD). Multiple studies have shown CFD can cause autism, seizures, motor abnormalities, mitochondrial disease and other neurological problems. Dr. Rossignol will present recent research on CFD testing and innovative treatments typically covered by insurance and case studies of children, and, surprisingly, their parents.
Dan Rossignol, MD, FAAFP

Are Stem Cells the Future of Autism Biomedical Therapies?
Dr Bradstreet is actively involved in research and treatment of autism using various types of stem cells. An animal model of autism has been created to study different types of stem cell therapies in collaboration with The Department of Experimental Medicine at the Second University of Naples, Italy. In addition, Dr Bradstreet is collecting outcome data on children treated using neuronal stem cells in Europe. This discussion will address all types of available and experimental stem cell types and their individual benefits and risks. Stem cell may prove to be a great hope for long-term immunological and neurodevelopmental therapy for ASDs.
Jeff Bradstreet, MD

Determining Environmental Toxins and Biomarkers Significant and Predictive of Immune Disregulation in the Autism Spectrum
The medical literature points to Glutathione (GSH) as one of the key markers for suppressed immune function.This important biomarker is now being measured to within 5% and is a relevant and important diagnostic and clinical measurement. In a 3-year study we have developed a number of biomarker tests in blood, one of which is the GSH and its oxidized form, GSSG. In our study, we have also developed and used other tests that can be applied as supporting markers of ASD patients' immune systems.
Skip Kingston, PhD

AutismWHYandHOW: A Web Resource for Informed Reflective Discourse and Higher Synthesis of Autism's Complexity
AutismWHYandHOW is a companion website to  The Autism Revolution  book addressing the assumptions, rationales, bodies of literature and gaps in the many answers to three core questions: What is Autism, What Causes Autism, and How Can We Help. It aims to support reflective discourse toward a higher synthesis of autism's complexity through grasping the integrity and limits of insights from each vantage point. I will demonstrate the website, convey its spirit of inquiry and invite participation.
Martha Herbert, PhD, MD

Inspirational Homeopathy a Heart Centered Approach to Healing the Deepest Levels of ASD
Stories of homeopathic healing that address not only the physical body, but the mental, emotional and spiritual bodies of the child. We will discuss how a €˜constitutional' and an €˜isopathic' homeopathic approach can be used together. Our guide is not a set protocol, but understanding the child using a parent's intuition of how how they feel deeply on the inside and a greater understanding of the €˜larger' story piecing together patterns of a parent's life experiences and a child's behavior.
Angelica Lemke, ND, CCH and Pierre Fontaine, RSHom, CCH

Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment for Neurological Conditions
New studies have reported improvements in some individuals who have certain neurological conditions by using Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment (HBOT). These conditions include cerebral palsy, chronic brain injury, autism, traumatic brain injury and fetal alcohol syndrome. The effects of HBOT on inflammation, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and stem cells will also be discussed.
Dan Rossignol, MD, FAAFP

When Biomed Parents Meet Mainstream Physicians
Often, mainstream physicians evaluating a child with ASD see behaviors as symptoms of the autism. Parents recognize these behaviors as clues to the child's health status. Complex medical issues require parents to manage care across specialties: gastroenterology, neurology and primary care. We'll discuss the art of medical communication and how to navigate ER visits, dental work, anesthesia and more. Resources provided will empower parents to advocate effectively within mainstream medicine.
Sonja Hintz, RN and Linda Betzold

From Preconception to Infancy: Environmental and Nutritional Strategies for Lowering the Risk of Autism
This talk explores the suppression of information via control of mainstream media and illuminates means of supporting and healing the body by taking back control of our own and our children’s health with natural, legitimate remedies. How does the larger-world picture impact what real “medicine” is available to children with autism, and how do you access it? The power to heal is yours
David Berger, MD, FAAP

Is There an Intervention That Combines Antioxidant, Anti-inflammatory, Metal Chelating, Mitochondrial-protective, and Neuroprotective Effects?
There are some unique flavonoids that have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and metal chelating activities. Oral absorption of flavonoids is less than 10% and these are heavily metabolized in the liver through methylation and sulphation. Intestinal inflammation further reduces flavonoid absorption, while decreased ability to methylate or sulphate them could lead to “phenol intolerance” presenting as irritability. A new formulation will contain methylated luteolin that has increased absorption and will not require extensive metabolism so that it may enter the brain and reduce inflammation as well as provide protection for mitochondria and neurons.
Theoharis C. Theoharides, PhD, MD, FAAAAI

Living Energy: Essential Oils and Autism
The practical, hands-on use of essential oil therapy in autism. Hear how the use of just the right essential oil helped a boy start to speak again after years.
Shawn Centers, DO, FACOP

Evaluation, Workup, and Treatment – A Comprehensive Review of the Biomedical Approach to Autism
Biomedicine represents a paradigm shift in care, in getting our children appropriate treatment. ASD affects multiple biochemical processes in the body, described as the “vicious cycles”. The biomedical approach concentrates on breaking these vicious cycles through a comprehensive investigation into the sources of the problem, followed by treatment of the causes of the dysfunction. Dr. Montico provides a preview of what parents should expect from a biomedical evaluation including: initial evaluation, laboratory workup, treatment options, and comprehensive treatment plans.
Michael Montico, MD

Introduction to the Medical Academy of Pediatric Special Needs (MAPS)
The Medical Academy of Pediatric Special Needs (MAPS) provides education and long-term support for practitioners, ensuring the quality and uniformity of medical care for children with autism and related medical conditions.
Dan Rossignol, MD, FAAFP

If We'd Know Then, What We Know Now: A Fresh Approach to Treating Root Causes of Autism
Targeted nutritional and biochemical interventions can help correct the root cause of a child's learning/behavioral/developmental issues, moodiness, depression, anxiety, phobias, fears, trouble concentrating, restlessness, tantrums and rage as they relate to autism. The science behind recent advances in biochemical, nutritional and genetic therapies will be presented along with information on digestive issues, heavy metal overload, brain inflammation, and nutrient deficiencies or overloads.
Albert Mensah, MD and Judith Bowman, MD, FAAP

Global Alert: Environment and Increasing Autism Risk, What You Can Do
An unprecedented global experiment is underway. Human activity is pushing ecological and biological boundaries beyond predictable limits. Accumulating evidence links autism to environmental toxins and variability in eliminating toxins. Synergisms of multiple, low level, pervasive adversely affect neurodevelopment and cellular resilience leading to whole body medical symptoms. Using an integrative and functional medicine perspective Dr. Schwartz will review: minimizing exposures, supporting detox, optimal diet, biomedical treatments.
Norm Schwartz, MD

Adrenals and a Review of Other Hormones Including Thyroid and Growth Hormone
Dr West will discuss the hormonal pathways and how they have been affected by chronic illness and stress. We will focus mostly on the adrenals. People are scared of the word hormone, but remember, this includes “STRESS” hormones. One of the reason good fats are sooo important is because fats are the precursors to our hormones. We will discuss how this allows for inflammation to persist, including what I call “mental inflammation”. We all know how much inflammation plays a role in our children’s illness. We will review thyroid, progesterone, pregnenolone, growth hormone and adrenals. This lecture will also be VEERY helpful to the “Stressed out” parents of special needs children, or anyone whose lives in this day and age is “stressful”. Treatment of these deficiencies through various modalities will be presented
Rachel West, DO

Natural Approaches to the Dysregulated Nervous System: Healing Sleep, Stress and Seizures.
We are up 20 times each night! My child is constantly on high alert! Sound familiar? These are common and potentially disabling symptoms for families with children on the autism spectrum. Stress, seizures and poor sleep impact not just quality of life but learning, development and social interactions. Learn about sleep physiology, how seizure activity can impact sleep, and interventions that can help regulate the circadian rhythm and calm the brain for more restful nights and peaceful days.
Maya Shetreat-Klein, MD

Seizures in Autism
A New National Survey on Treatments: Approximately 25% of children and adults with autism have seizures, and another 50% may have sub-clinical seizures that are often undetected but may affect their intellectual functioning. This presentation will briefly review the causes and consequences of seizure in autism. The new results of a national survey of treatment of over 700 children and adults with seizures and autism will be presented. A comparison of the benefits and possible side effects of many medical, dietary, and nutritional treatments will be presented.
Richard Frye, MD, PhD

Autism and Medical Cannabis
This is a parent's personal perspective on the use of medical cannabis on their children with autism, and its effectiveness on symptoms such as seizures, anxiety, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, and pain. This is our holistic approach to treating the various symptoms of autism when conventional medications stopped yielding results.
Nathan Coombs, MEd and Rhonda Morris

Osteopathy and Seizures
Learn about the use of manipulative therapy in the treatment of autism, seizure disorder, and the gut.
Shawn Centers, DO, FACOP

Autism & Epilepsy: Co-morbidities or Co-pathophysiologies
Dr. Buchhalter will discuss types of seizures and epilepsies and EEG findings in children with ASD. He will address the most frequently asked questions and present research findings comparing children with ASD and the general population. This presentation will look at reported causal factors; at interictal epileptiform EEG abnormalities, and at the profound implications of treating individuals with ASD who have interictal EEG discharges.
Jeffrey Buchhalter, MD, PhD

Food, Diet and Nutrition

Hump Back Healing: Nutritional and Medical Benefits of Camel's Milk
This talk will give an overview of some of the attributes of Camel's Milk from a medical and nutritional stand point. Camel's milk is a staple of many cultures around the world. It has many advantages to cow's milk both from a nutritional and allergenic standpoint. We will be presenting how these advantages can bring healing to many of the issues plaguing children on the spectrum. Included will be reports from families using the milk to heal their children and how it can benefit yours as well.
Barry Smeltzer, MPAS, PA-C

Food With Benefits
Learn to add beneficial foods into your daily routine and incorporate healthy habits regardless of diet need or challenge. Chef Sueson will help you identify food sources of nutrients that are essential to healing your gut and more and how to add them to your menu so that they are enjoyed by everyone.
Sueson Vess, MPH, ACE-CPT

Enzymes and Autism: Gut Health, Diet and Nutritional Balance
An increased understanding of the gut's role in nutrition, immunity and overall health has emphasized the importance of digestive function. Enzyme supplements can add another level of benefit, along with the diet.Proper understanding of enzymes and their function can provide valuable help in addressing specific food intolerances.This lecture will illustrate how plant-based enzymes work, how they are dosed, and how to select the appropriate type of enzyme for individual dietary needs.
Devin Houston, PhD

Special ASD Diets & Nutrition: Healing the Gut -- Healing the Brain
This presentation will review the various therapeutic diets implemented for children with ASD. It will include a review of the literature indicating GI disease associated with ASD and the gut-brain connection. Each of the special diets will then be examined for a thorough understanding of the benefits and cautions.
Geri Brewster, RD, MPH, CDN

Scientific Criteria For Selecting Foods and Dietary Supplements
Examines the most current clinical evidence, which should be used when selecting foods and supplements for general use and with autism, and with other developmental disorders and special needs situations.
Larry A. Newman

Key Notes From My Son’s Successful Journey to Recovery, by a Mother and a Homeopath
Proper nutritional guidelines, homeopathy, orthomolecular medicine and other forms of holistic care. In this presentation I will explain how I managed to learn and to put the pieces together by individualizing and choosing the most appropriate treatments to work like an orchestra playing a symphony in perfect harmony. I will present simple inexpensive tools you can use.
Andrea Lalama, Hom.

Cooking to Boost Developmental Skills
Cooking can help parents and children build connection and communication. In this workshop, we'll explore ways to frame the cooking experience to be successful for children of all abilities and teach how cooking can help children work on fine & gross motor skills, communication, language, literacy, math, sensory integration, and most importantly, relationship-building. Author of The Kitchen Classroom Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer shares strategies that she uses with her children.
Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer

Mushrooms on the Menu: Nutritional, Medicinal, and Behavioral Effects Relative to ASD
The Fabulous Four Fungi - Reishi, Shiitake, Maitake and Cordyceps - offer powerful support for the immune system. These and other fungi with healing properties specific to autism can be served on the plate or taken as supplements. Certain mushrooms affect emotions, behavior, personality and creative expression. Explore the world of 'shrooms, learn their Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine uses and how they can improve function and well being for those on the autism spectrum.
Sandra D. Williams, PhD

38 Children Recovered in 20 months: Autism Treatment with MMS
This presentation will outline the approach Kerri has used successfully to help recover 38 children from a diagnosis of Autism. She will explain how MMS (chlorine dioxide) has become the missing piece to the autism puzzle for so many of the families that she works with. MMS is available worldwide, and is extremely cost effective, bringing recovery in reach of all families, despite economic or geographic limitations. This presentation seeks to prove that Autism truly is curable.
Kerri Rivera

Digestive Challenges & Solutions Associated With Autism Spectrum Disorders
Autism Spectrum Disorders are most often accompanied by digestive distress. This distress ranges from stomach aches, diarrhea and constipation to food intolerances, food allergies and malabsorption. Tom will discuss the most common symptoms and the solutions that can help. Specific restrictive diets and enzyme therapy will be featured in this presentation.
Tom Bohager

Fermentation: Fast Steps to Friendly Fecal Flora
Eighty percent of your immune system stems from the flora in your gut. Balanced flora, with an ample supply of probiotics, is the essential foundation for all other autism treatments. Simply taking a probiotic supplement may not be enough. Betsy will explore the vast array of fermented and cultured foods available on the market, as well as many you can make in your home. As the author of Picky Eating Solutions, Betsy's tips will help introduce these foods into your finicky eater's diet.
Betsy Hicks

Do Genetically Engineered Foods Promote Autism?
Lab animals and livestock fed genetically modified (GM) feed show behavioral and physiological changes that mimic autism symptoms—until the feed is removed. The problems include antisocial or aggressive behavior, constant irritation, intestinal inflammation and permeability, gut bacteria disorders, diarrhea, bloating, stomach ulcers, immune system dysfunction, and damaged organs. We will present the evidence of harm, including statements condemning GMOs by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, and teach people how to make healthier non-GMO choices for your family.
Jeffrey M. Smith

Practical Magic: The Benefits and Realities of Camel Milk Therapy for ASD
Camel milk is gaining anecdotal praise for notable effects in ASD children (C. Adams, Autism File, April 2012). Hailed by the UN for nutritional value, it reportedly shows remarkable benefits in several diseases. Adams shares her unique experiences and information gathered from scientists and camel experts since 2005, as her son is probably the longest continual ASD user of camel milk. She covers fascinating studies, explains potential benefits, and outlines the complexities of obtaining milk.
Christina Adams

Gastrointestinal Track

Mechanistic Theories of the Gut-Brain Axis in the Setting of Autism and Intestinal Inflammation
Autism associated inflammatory bowel disease is well established, but little is known about the intestinal mechanisms by which bowel inflammation can impact early brain development. This lecture synthesizes the autism related GI data from numerous peer reviewed publications and creates one cohesive theory that helps explain the unique intestinal pathology that could potentially lead to downstream developmental and neurologic deficits.
Arthur Krigsman, MD

Intestinal Microbial Ecology and Autistic Gastrointestinal Problems
The gut bacteria of children with autism was compared with typical children using pyrosequencing of stool samples. We observed that the gut microflora in healthy children was more diverse and had a higher number of unique phylotypes than in autistic children. At the phylum level, children with autism had more Verrucomcrobia, and less Proteobacteria. At the genus level, children with autism had high amounts of Akkermansia, and less Oscilibacter, Prevotella, and Paraprevotella.
James B. Adams, PhD and Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, PhD

Review of Studies on the Role of Microbes in Late Onset Autism
There is often immunologic susceptibility to autism, either genetic or related to environmental toxins. Two of the most important factors that lead to ingrowth or overgrowth of potential pathogens are diet and exposure to antimicrobial agents. This presentation will review a variety of organisms under consideration, found in stool and mucosal biopsies; and viral or bacterial infections during pregnancy. Improvement has been noted with various antimicrobial agents.
Sydney Finegold, MD

Biofilms, Bugs, and Bowels: Rebalancing Your Child's Gut
Biofilms are collections of organisms working together to survive and thrive within a host environment. Healthy, beneficial bacteria living within our intestines organize into a biofilm to support their survival as well as ours. Additionally, biofilms can be formed by pathogenic microorganisms and create both illness and disease. Biofilms are resistant to antibiotics and so effective treatment lies within other forms of therapy and are best treated through probiotics.
John H. HIcks, MD

Gastrointestinal Pathology in Autism Spectrum Disorders: The Venezuelan Experience
Physical symptoms in ASD children are often misinterpreted as just autistic behaviors. In our experience, symptoms of what turns out to be GI distress often present as inexplicable irritability, aggressive or auto-aggressive (self-injurious) behaviors, discomfort, sleep disorders, and other behavioral disturbances.
Lenny G. Gonzalez, MD

Gastrointestinal Symptoms in ASD Children: The Chicken, or the Egg?
This talk will focus on our work designed to characterize, both clinically and at a deeper molecular level, gastrointestinal symptoms in ASD children as compared to typically developing children. Our studies are geared towards gaining a more complete understanding of the complex biologic mechanisms that underlie these symptoms in children with ASD so that effective treatment strategies can be implemented early.
Steve Walker, PhD

IEP Special Education Track

Know Your Special Ed Rights: IDEA Overview & Preparing for Advocacy
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is federal law that creates civil rights and substantive protections to children with disabilities. Do you understand your school district's legal obligations to your child under federal law? Come learn the basic framework of IDEA 2004 as well as the implications of recent case law in the context of achieving a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for the special needs child.
Timothy Adams, Esq. and Lynne Arnold

Know Your Special Ed Rights: Evaluations
Assessing the child in all areas of suspected disability is the legal obligation of the district and usually the most important building block of the IEP. Without an accurate assessment, it can be nearly impossible to place the child in the correct program.This session will explore common contradictions and misinterpretations in district assessments that result in inappropriate recommendations. The most important aspects of an independent educational evaluation as well as critical ages for assessment will be covered.
Timothy Adams, Esq. and Lynne Arnold

Know Your Special Ed Rights: Understanding School District and Independent Evaluations
Assessing the child in all areas of suspected disability is the legal obligation of the district and usually the most important building block of the IEP. Without an accurate assessment, it can be nearly impossible to place the child in the correct program.This session will explore common contradictions and misinterpretations in district assessments that result in inappropriate recommendations. The most important aspects of an independent educational evaluation as well as critical ages for assessment will be covered.
Mitchel Perlman, PhD

Know Your Special Ed Rights: IEP Strategy
The first step to effectively controlling the IEP process is determining the appropriate strategy to gain leverage with the school district. The IEP process will be broken down into components to teach parents how to evaluate the best course of action in each situation. We will discuss how parents can more effectively respond to district objections to parental and independent expert recommendations. Techniques for forcing district personnel to fully explain their positions and district policies will be explored. Parents will learn how to apply these concepts to their child's individual needs and their district.
Timothy Adams, Esq. and Lynne Arnold

Advanced Special Education Topics
The presenters will address advanced special education topics, including: Does you school district have an obligation to maintain your child's educational records under FERPA? Can bullying be considered a denial of FAPE? Can an IEE be granted on a contingency by your district? Has your district threatened and intimidated you that if you pursue a claim against them and lose, they will seek collection of its attorney's fees against you? Answers to these questions and many others will be discussed.
Timothy Adams, Esq. and Mara LaViola

Adjunct therapies

A Green Body Approach for ASD: Change the Body Naturally with Sound Therapy.
The Davis Model of Sound Intervention began as a way to use specific methods like AIT and Tomatis ® and has become an integrative approach using the best methods to make core foundational energy change for the person on the autism spectrum. As each cell vibrates and emits sound, there is nothing more €˜green' than rebalancing what is naturally within us. Change occurs with improvements in sensory responsiveness, language learning, social communication, and overall thinking and development.
Dorinne Davis, MA

A Sensory Intervention Using Precision Colored Filters
This presentation provides information on how a brain-based intervention can reduce sensory overload, enabling the brain to process visual information, resulting in improvements in behavior, social interaction, and communication. Visual processing deficits impose limitations on functioning. Simple environmental modifications for the home and the classroom will be provided. Minimizing sensory bombardment should be an essential intervention and part of the treatment program for many with ASD.
Helen L. Irlen, MA, LMFT

The Anat Baniel Method: Transforming The Lives of Children On The Autism Spectrum Through Practical Applications of Brain Plasticity Principles
In this experiential presentation you'll learn about the 9 Essentials of the Anat Baniel Method to awaken the remarkable capacities of the brain of the child with autism to heal and learn. Replacing repetitive exercises, discover science based, cutting edge practical tools that can be used at home or adopted to therapy that help the brain of the child self organize at higher levels, catapulting the child to be able to feel, understand, move, and think in ways that seemed unattainable before.
Anat Baniel

QEEG-Guided Neurofeedback: New Brain Based Subtype Assessment and Successful Individualized Treatment for Autism
QEEG-guided neurofeedback is based on normalizing dysregulated brain regions that relate to specific clinical presentation. QEEG-guided neurofeedback is specific to each individual's QEEG subtype. The goal is to balance brain functioning. This tailored approach should not be underestimated.These include significant speech and communication improvements, calmer and less aggressive behavior, increased attention, better eye contact, and improved socialization, including medication reduction.
Michael Linden, PhD, BCN, James Neubrander, MD and Cynthia Kerson, PhD, QEEGT

Using Video Modeling as a Cost-Effective Way to Teach Play (and Language and Social Skills) to Children with Autism
Play is one of the hallmark deficits in children with autism. Video modeling is often an effective methodology for teaching children with autism a variety of skills, including play. This presentation will review the developmental sequence of play and the use of video modeling as an instructional technique, and will provide examples of utilizing video modeling techniques to teach play, language and social skills.
Sarah Clifford Scheflen, MS, CCC-SLP

Sensory Integration Solutions
Everything we think, feel, smell, touch and hear involves our senses. Many of our children (at any age) are struggling to block out the input. Many are exhibiting behaviors such as toe walking, hand flapping, hitting, humming, rocking, covering their ears, and the list goes on. Receive tips on and tools for understanding and helping your children today. It is not about stomping out the symptoms; it is about understanding how to set up our children for success rather than failure.
Kristin Selby Gonzalez

Auditory Hypersensitivity and Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Treatable Condition
Many children diagnosed with ASD have auditory hypersensitivities. This talk describes auditory hypersensitivities, the systems involved, methods for evaluation, and treatment options including TLP Spectrum „¢. These children have negative emotional reactions to sounds and to situations where the sounds are present. It is possible to desensitize these negative emotional reactions and reprogram the emotional memory system so the children are no longer frightened by or find sounds uncomfortable.
Alex Doman

FEATURED SPEAKER: EEG-guided rTMS in Autism Spectrum Disorder --An Open Label Study
Nineteen subjects with ASD were treated with rTMS. Treatment was provided daily, ? hour a day, 5 days a week for 5 weeks. Results showed that 42% of subjects responded. Corresponding to the clinical improvement, most responders demonstrated significant improvement in EEG alpha synchronization. The present study supports the hypothesis that the ASD syndrome is a clinical manifestation of the brain deficit of anxiety, which should be the primary focus of treatment.
Yi Jin, MD

Ear Health Conditions: Unrecognized Barriers to Development and Learning
Children are given verbal information all day by teachers, therapists and parents, but are their ears are actually receiving andtransmitting it correctly to the brain? There are ear health conditions that go unrecognized and interfere with transmission, making it difficult or impossible to understand and learn easily. Sally Brockett, co-author of Hearing Equals Behavior: Updated and Expanded, discusses these conditions, how to identify them, and steps to remedy the condition.
Sally Brockett, MS

Adult/Adolescent Track and Think Tank

Building Sustainable Futures for Adults with ASD
Funds for lifespan services are shrinking yearly. We need innovative programs that are self sustaining and pilot projects to learn what benefits individuals with ASD across the lifespan. This presentation focuses on The Campus of Life, a TERI project. This campus provides multiple sustainable models for lifespan support, including urban farming, microenterprise development, Special Needs Life Quality Coaching and Planning; post-secondary education models; and other innovative programs.
Cheryl Kilmer, MA and William Mara

Remembering the One
ScenicView Academy is a school for adults with learning disabilities. Our mission is to help individuals diagnosed with Autism, Aspergers, ADHD, Executive Functioning Deficits, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, or Dysgraphia, or other learning disabilities gain skills that lead to independent and fulfilling lives. We do this through case management, clinical services, education, employment, health/fitness, and recreational therapy. Through our residential or day-time programming, students learn about their disabilities and how to accommodate for them. ScenicView Academy provides the safe environment necessary for students with learning disabilities to help gain knowledge and confidence in the path that lies before them. This presentation will focus on explaining how a student progresses through the outlined program components.
Doug Gale, MA

A Full Life with Autism
Jeremy will present about his life and what helped him become a high school graduate and to be successful in life and college. He will describe the life skills he had to learn before leaving high school. Jeremy will discuss the importance of good supports, and what those are for someone like him. He will also cover how to fully include someone with autism like him.
Jeremy Sicile-Kira and Chantal Sicile-Kira

When You Have Finally Find Your Voice, What Do You Most Want to Say?
Elizabeth Bonker, 14, is profoundly affected by autism and can't speak, yet she illuminates the inner world of autism through poems that she types one finger at a time. I Am in Here: The Journey of a Child with Autism Who Cannot Speak but Finds Her Voice by Elizabeth and her mother, Virginia Breen, combines Elizabeth's poetry with Virginia's stories. Intensive educational, behavioral and medical interventions have all helped Elizabeth to find her voice.
Virginia Breen and Elizabeth Bonker

Employment Opportunities for People with Autism: Observations on Promoting Success
Even those individuals with ASD who achieved post secondary education or have highly developed skill areas often have difficulty selling themselves in job interviews and maintaining working relationships on the job. Drawing on his personal and professional experiences as an adult living with autism, Stephen will share the strategies he has used successfully to find and secure employment and meet the expectations of employers for people throughout the autism spectrum. Some of those techniques include learning about the Hidden Curriculum of the work environment, dealing with sensory issues, effective self-advocacy skills, and insights for developing successful interactions with co-workers and supervisors.
Stephen M. Shore, EdD

Life Care Planning and Case Management for Individuals with Autism and Related Disabilities
This workshop addressed the life care planning process, which will allow a case manager to develop a well-organized and consistent approach to the long-term care of individuals with Autism and related disabilities. Subjects to discuss will include the integration of care management, information and communication, and financial management.
Mary Jo Lang, PhD, ABPN, BCBA-D

Kentucky's ASD Employment Pilot Project
Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) practices are often ineffective and distressing for ASD clients. The Capability Approach (CA), is a new tool to assess obstacles and create employment supports. CA has idetntified 24 vocational priorities critical to the young adult's job capability. The Broad Creative Support System (BCS) integrates supports to minimize obstacles. The CA and the BCS can provide a broader scope of support analysis, interests/strengths that can enable job capability.
Jackie M. Marquette, PhD

Education and Assistive Technology

Applied Behavioral Analysis for Individuals with Autism and Developmental Disabilities
This is an in-depth workshop discussing the use of Applied Behavioral Analysis as an intervention for individuals with Autism and related disabilities. Specific topics to be covered include functions of behavior and data collection, arranging consequences to increase and decrease behavior, differential reinforcement and generalization, intervention strategies, and social skills.
Mary Jo Lang, PhD, ABPN, BCBA-D

ADI-R and ADOS in Clinical Practice, Research and Treatment Evaluation
The session will provide an introduction to administering and coding the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). It will include discussion of their use in diagnosis, treatment evaluation and research to date and the potential impact of DSM-V on diagnosis and classification of autism spectrum conditions. (Disclaimer: ADI-R and ADOS are published by Western Psychological Sevices (WPS) who neither authoriZed nor endorsed this presentation.)
Carol Stott, BSc, MSc, PhD

How to Set Limits Without Losing Your Mind: Behavior Strategies That Make Life Easier
Dealing with behavior challenges is one of the toughest jobs parents have! Responding to inflexibility, rudeness, resistance, tantrums, and more can be exhausting and overwhelming. When parents understand the underlying reasons for challenging behaviors and have simple tools to manage them, life becomes easier. This session will explore the biggest mistakes parents make when responding to their child's behaviors, and five powerful tools for managing any behavior your child may throw your way.
Nicole Beurkens, PhD

Increasing Independence and Accessibility with the iPad
This session will showcase practical iPad applications in the areas of communication, motor skills, behavior, and academics. Specific strategies for acquisition and implementation for children having a variety of abilities will be addressed.
Amy Motsinger

Assessing and Teaching Functional Living Skills to Individuals of All Ages with a Diagnosis of ASD Using The AFLS.
Individuals of all ages must learn functional living skills to be able to participate in a range of activities. The Assessment of Functional Living Skills (The AFLS) reviews over 850 skills in 31 functional skill areas such as traveling in the community, making purchases, seeking assistance, preparing meals, participating in household chores, and in social and leisure activities. This presentation will help parents identify functional skills their children need and methods to teach those skills.
James Partington, PhD, BCBA-D

Autism Intel: Breakthrough Strategies from a Man Who Used to Be Autistic
With humor and inspiration, Mr. Kaufman will recount his own story of recovery and provide some crucial, yet often-overlooked, aspects of autism and its treatment. His lecture details innovative techniques from The Son-Rise Program ® that you can use immediately to help your child: move beyond stimming (without you stopping or discouraging your child's behavior), learn new skills (without you having to push or pressure), and, most especially, to form meaningful, caring relationships with others.
Raun K. Kaufman and Kim Korpady

Understanding Behavior Management
This hour-long talk will briefly introduce the basic concepts of behavior management including ABA principles, reinforcement and punishment, intervention strategies, and tips for enhancing compliance. It features several vignettes to illustrate the topics addressed. It is designed as an audience-friendly primer on these important concepts in the field of Autism.
Mary Jo Lang, PhD, ABPN, BCBA-D

Modifying Behavior through Visual Supports
This session will explore the power of visual supports in modifying behavior. Specific examples and strategies for implementation will be provided.
Amy Motsinger

Connect, Care, Collaborate through Relationship Development Intervention (RDI)
ASD or NT, we want all of our children to connect with us, to continue building resilience, enjoy new challenges, collaborate, and thrive in their learning environments. We want them to seek out shared experiences and feel competent in building friendships. Join Kathy as she takes you through the model of typical development, demonstrating the remediation process through RDI, providing real-life, take-home strategies for that second chance to overcome the core of ASD that our kids deserve.
Kathy Darrow

Canary Party

The Canary Party is a movement created to stand up for the victims of medical injury, environmental toxins and industrial foods by restoring balance to our free and civil society and empowering consumers to make health and nutrition decisions that promote wellness.

More Vitamin D, No Vaccines, Virtually No Autism
While vaccine proponents claim that the benefits of childhood vaccination are undeniable, vaccine opponents hold that the incidence of autism, diabetes, and other chronic immune and neurological dysfunction in children has increased dramatically in the last 30 years. This stresses the difficulty in making an informed decision on whether to vaccinate or not. Can Vitamin D improve the symptoms of autism? I will present case studies that exemplify the effect of Vitamin D3 in treating autism.
Mayer Eisenstein, MD, JD, MPH

Roundtable--How to Use Local Media to Influence Public Opinion & Shape the Debate on Autism
Now is the time for parents to educate the public about the crucial issues surrounding autism. Speaking to the local media is easy if you are prepared. Come to this roundtable discussion to learn tips on how to become a source and develop a relationship with reporters. To change public opinion and shape the debate around autism, we need many voices speaking all over the country.
Rebecca Estepp

Why Are So Many Children Sick?
Mark Blaxill, Jennifer Larson and Ginger Taylor of the Canary Party will be discussing the increasingly quick decline of children's health in the United States and the role that government and corporate corruption is playing. Come learn what you can do to protect yourself and your family, and how you can fight back.
Mark Blaxill, MBA, Jennifer Larson and Ginger Taylor, MS

Age of Autism The Year in Review
Join the AgeofAutism.com team, Editor Dan Olmsted, Editor-At-Large Mark Blaxill and Managing Editor Kim Stagliano as they present a review of the stories that affected the autism community throughout 2011 and early 2012.
Mark Blaxill, MBA, Dan Olmsted and Kim Stagliano

Vaccine Manufacturing Practices and Residual Vaccine Contaminants
A trio of recent publications in NEURON reports the presence of hundreds of diverse de novo gene mutations indicating that ASD may be a disease of genomic instability, with a significant environmental component. US birthyear changepoints in AD are apparent in 1980, 1988 and 1996, coinciding with the switch to or introduction of childhood vaccines contaminated with human endogenous retrovirus K (HERVK) and human fetal DNA fragments. HERVK and human fetal DNA contaminants could contribute to the genomic instability of ASD demonstrated by de novo mutations.
Theresa Deisher, PhD

Hidden in Plain Sight: the Role of Vaccines in Chronic Disease
The adverse effects of vaccination are common enough to be the rule, rather than the exception; and they are not aberrations, but central to how vaccines work and therefore somewhat difficult to recognize as well. In particular, I will show that specific reactions to specific vaccines are greatly outweighed by nonspecific reactions to the vaccination process in general, and will develop some conclusions for health policy that follow from this change in perspective.
Richard Moskowitz, MD

All WE Can Handle. WE'RE No Mother Teresa!
Join Kim Stagliano, author, Managing Editor of Age of Autism & Mom to 3 daughters w/ ASD for laughter and shared stories of how none of us is Mother Teresa (or St. Peter). We'll talk about diagnosis, growing up, bullying, school issues and for those with older kids, what's next. The session will be interactive (don't worry, Kim will not attempt to saw you in half on stage) and follows the AofA presentation. Feel free to bring a cocktail.
Kim Stagliano

Waiting For Wyatt: A Journey Through Autism to Empowerment
Autism Mom, author and advocate Nancy Alspaugh-Jackson tells the story of her journey in parenting a child with autism and how it led to her true calling as an advocate and activist for other families. The executive director of ACT Today! (Autism Care and Treatment Today) believes your disability is your opportunity and that life's greatest challenges are expeditions of the soul which lead us to become the self-actualized beings we are meant to be.
Nancy Alspaugh-Jackson

Building Mainstream Relationships for Unique Children
Family Advocate Karen Kain is CEO of Lorrin's World. She shares her 15 years of raising her daughter Lorrin, who was blind, non-verbal, and a quadriplegic with a seizure disorder. Lorrin lived a full life: friends, slumber parties, concerts, Girl Scouts, and travel. She swam with dolphins, participated in the school play, and she and her canine companion won first place in a dance contest. Karen discusses how she set goals, got creative, and made a decision to live a life without boundaries.
Karen Kain

Chiropractic Track

The Perfect Storm
This workshop explores and explains the true causes of neuro-developmental disorders such as autism, ADHD, seizures, and sensory integration disorder, with a specific emphasis on the role of the brain and central nervous system. The workshop will teach exactly how the brain and neuro-development are supposed to occur, and where it goes wrong. It will provide attendees with direction of how to get their child's nervous system balanced and healthy again, and therefore enhance and improve their child's function and development, no matter the disorder.
Tony Ebel, DC

Posture and Motor Matter in the Autism Spectrum
Movement influences many aspects of our lives. Posture guides this motor activity and frequently goes uncorrected among individuals on the spectrum. Learn how this matters and the cruical role of Chiropractic.
Charles W. Chapple, DC, FICPA

What Does My Child Need?Don't Guess, Test!: Where to Start and Where to Go
Are you overwhelmed? So how does a parent sift through all this information and get to the root cause of their child's disorder? Don't guess about what steps to take first TEST! Dr. Flynn will explain how to use testing to appropriately get to the source of your child's health issues. Dr. Flynn's main focus will be addressing the neurological, endocrine, digestive, and immune connection and the appropriate protocols used to address those systems.
Patrick Flynn, NMD, ND, DC

Affecting Sensory Processing and Primitive Reflexes with Chiropractic and Cranial Sacral Therapy
So frequently are Sensory Processing Disorders, ADHD to Autism, addressed through a variety of behavioral and biochemical approaches, that the significance of the biomechanical aspects of these conditions can be underestimated. Experts state that if a cluster of irregular nervous system reflexes remains unaddressed, it will prevent sustained, long-term improvement. My focus is to utilize these non-invasive techniques to benefit the individuals' biomechanical and nervous system demands.
Charles W. Chapple, DC, FICPA

CME Course

A Pathophysiological Approach to Brain Issues in Autism
How do whole-body issues affect the brain in autism? Documentation of cellular-level inflammatory and oxidative stress changes in the brain still leaves open specifically how these changes translate into altered thinking and behaviors. This lecture will review the components of the brain's physical infrastructure, how they interface with the brain's signaling mechanisms, how pathophysiology in autism may alter this interface, relevant research methods and frontiers, and treatment implications.
Martha Herbert, PhD, MD

Redox and Methylation in the Gut, Brain and Immune System. Part I: General Principles
The ability to resist oxidation and to adapt to environmental stressors is fundamental to homeostasis, and sulfur metabolism provides the foundation for these abilities. Signaling molecules with the ability to change the redox state can exert a broad influence over cellular metabolism, including methylation-mediated epigenetic effects on gene transcription that can persist across the lifespan and even across generations. Conversely, environmental factors which interfere with redox signaling can disrupt its regulatory role, contributing to a number of disorders affecting almost every aspect of physiological function. This lecture will provide an overview of the cellular processes which regulate redox and methylation in the GI tract, the brain and the immune system, illustrating similarities and cell type-specific differences.
Richard C. Deth, PhD

Environmentally Influenced Immune-Behavior-Cognitive Dysfunction
We now have an abundance of evidence that environmental factors, including: allergens, volatile organic compounds, microbes and toxins, may all influence behaviors and cognitive processes in many children with autism spectrum disorders, ADHD and LD. This lecture will create the fundamental knowledge needed to address the causes and therapies.
Jeff Bradstreet, MD

Autistic Enterocolitis: Fact or Fiction
This lecture will review the published data regarding the symptoms, histopathology, and immunohistochemistry of this unique intestinal inflammatory process and discuss possible mechanistic processes by which they may result in cognitive and neurologic dysfunction.
Arthur Krigsman, MD

Neurological Abnormalities in Autism
Children with autism have been found to have many neurological abnormalities including differences in brain function, structure and connectivity, neurotransmitter and metabolic abnormalities and electrical disturbances in the brain including seizures. This talk will review some of the important aspects of these neurological abnormalities and their treatments.
Richard Frye, MD, PhD

Making a Plan: Applying Biomedical Interventions in the Clinical Setting
Patients with ASDs can be extremely complex. Patients often have an overwhelming amount of medical issues and their families are under enormous emotional and financial stress. Clinicians now have the benefit of a large amount of research and treatment options available, but this can make prioritizing treatments into a practical plan challenging. Using the literature and patient histories, this talk will go through techniques clinicians can use to integrate clinical findings into a treatment plan for the patient and family.
Kyle Van Dyke, MD

CME Program Q&A Panel Discussion

Jeff Bradstreet, MD; Richard C. Deth, PhD; Richard Frye, MD, PhD; Arthur Krigsman, MD; Kyle Van Dyke, MD

Culinary Day

Culinary Day Part 1
Culinary Day Part 2
Culinary Day Part 3
Culinary Day Part 4
Culinary Day Part 5
Culinary Day like you've never experienced before! Spend the day with fabulous, fun teachers of healthy, healing habits regardless of diet GFCF, SCD, GAPS, Body Ecology and more. We will keep your interest, attention and appetite peaked all day with activities like movement and LAUGHING YOGA breaks and HANDS-ON opportunities with equipment and food. You'll sample delightful morsels and bring home recipes galore. Healthy food is our Love & Passion! Detailed schedule is on the culinary day page.
Sueson Vess, MPH, ACE-CPT, Sherrin Ross Ingram, Esq.; Jasmine Jafferali; Deepa Deshmukh, MPH, RD, LDN; Bill Schleffer

Dad's Track

The First Dads of Autism: Life Lessons and Early Patterns from the Leo Kanner's First 11 Fathers
Interesting patterns of father's experiences in autism were set at the outset of the Age of Autism and have included abandonment, avoidance, anger and advocacy. Taking a historical perspective on the first fathers of the autism epidemic, this discussion will reflect on the lessons for the fathers in the epidemic period of autism.
Mark Blaxill, MBA

Raising a Child on the Spectrum: Transformation of a Single Dad
Ken will discuss the experience of taking full custody and care for his non-verbal autistic son and how it transformed him from an irreverent Wall Street 'man about town' to an inspired stay at home dad.
Ken Siri, MBA

The Exercise Connection: Effective Programming for Individuals with Autism
Exercise programs are one of the most under-utilized treatments for children and adults with autism spectrum disorders. David will educate you on the importance of structure, visual, tactile and sensory supports and how to set up an individual and group exercise program. The exercises you will learn have been implemented in homes, schools and autism centers across the world. Be ready to move, learn and leave with exercises that you can do with your child or the children you work with tomorrow!
David Geslak, CSCS

Dads Are Warriors Too
There's no reason for Dad to feel left out while Mom is busy curing the kid. There are a myriad of ways to become involved in your child's recovery, and also become involved in the autism community as a whole. And there are a myriad of rewards that will come with that involvement.
Wade Rankin

Estate Planning for Special Needs Children – What Parents Need to Know
Any family with a special needs child - whether mild, moderate or severely affected - needs proper estate planning. This presentation will describe special needs trusts, which enable parents to control how their assets will benefit their children without jeopardizing any governmental assistance their children receive. Tom will also discuss adult guardianships, SSI benefits, the reasons you should become guardian for your adult child, and the steps required to become guardian.
Thomas Clark, Esq.

Dad's Panel
A empowered group of fathers will discuss their transition into the autism community. They will share their challenges and success they have had helping their children and families. This panel is a first of its kind and not to be missed.
Mark Blaxill, MBA, Tom Clark, Esq., Ken Siri, MBA, David Geslak, Wade Rankin

Down Syndrome Track

The Dawn of a New Decade
Jane Winans, parent of a thriving child with Down syndrome, shares her journey and discusses biomedical options she used for her daughter. Hear from 9-year old, Lydia, in this moving opening session designed to enlighten and empower parents
Jane Winans, MA and Lydia Winans

Biomedical Basics: Where to Begin
Dr. Schwartz will review the history and scientific research documenting the benefit of nutrient support in Down Syndrome. He will explain low risk, high gain interventions to: optimize nutrition and supplementation; monitor and support thyroid; choose first line, functional lab tests; avoid environmental toxins; and support detoxification. These are the building blocks needed to form a solid foundation upon which your child may flourish.
Norm Schwartz, MD

Down Syndrome Trisomy 21: Understanding the Problem
Down Syndrome (DS) results from an extra copy of chromosome 21, including a number of genes on this chromosome that affect antioxidant status and methylation capacity, especially in neurons. These two factors are critical for epigenetic regulation of neural development, and are amenable to biomedical interventions. Dr. Deth will review the factors that contribute to trisomy, as well as the molecular implications of increased gene dosage for neurodevelopment and their relationship to metabolic treatment options.
Richard C. Deth, PhD

What's Next? Exploring Options
Dr. Anju Usman will explain the next level of biomedical healing including optimizing a healthy gut-brain connection, and nutrients for brain repair and neurogenesis, which is the brain's ability to create new brain cells and new connections.
Anju Usman, MD

Important Nutritional, Oral Motor, Feeding and Language Ideas to Ensure Optimal Development of Your Child with Down Syndrome
Jill Rabin will instruct participants on paving the path to good communication and articulate speech for their children with Down Syndrome, using proper medical intervention and assessment; optimal nutrition and supplementation; and the facilitation of oral motor, feeding, and language skills,
Jill Rabin, MS, CCC-SLP

Sequential Processing and Alternative Treatment Methods
Alison Wimmer will explain the fundamentals of neurodevelopment and why it works beautifully with the holistic approach to DS treatment, allowing children with developmental challenges to succeed and exceed expectations. She will also discuss how lack of function or development does not indicate a lack of potential: Each individual should be provided with opportunities based on a perception of unlimited potential.
Alison Wimmer

The Future: Choose Your Own Adventure
Sessions end with each parent's exciting new journey before her or him. Cheryl Greene will share her time-saving strategies to help parents fit everything in their busy schedules. Andi Durkin will unveil great new resources to support parents as they explore and implement OPTIONs for healthier children, including a new Foundation and website with access to a parent database. The floor will open for questions and answers.
Cheryl Green and Andi Durkin

EBCALA Track

The purpose of EBCALA is to educate lawyers, advocates and parents about the legal challenges of autism. Formed in late 2008, EBCALA provides training, resources and a forum within which to advance legal and advocacy strategies to improve the lives of those with autism.

Know Your Parental Rights with DSM-5 ASD Changes
We will compare the definitions of autism spectrum disorders in DSM-IV with the proposed new definition of Autism Spectrum Disorder that will replace all of them in 2013 if adopted by the American Psychiatric Association. Participants will compare the diagnostic criteria side-by-side to see how a healthcare professional can translate an existing DSM-IV Autism Spectrum diagnosis into a DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, and the potential pitfalls in that process.
Jodi Bouer, Esq., Mitchel Perlman, PhD, Steven Kossor, MA and Katie Weisman

CPS at Your Door - and What If You Can't Be There For Your Children
The medical community and school districts increasingly are using child protective services (CPS) and the court system to pressure parents who make what mainstream practitioners view as alternative health care decisions regarding their children. Parents' decisions and families' lives are scrutinized. Parents face allegations of neglect and abuse. Court action and the child removal are realities facing the special needs community. What are the powers of CPS? This presentation will assist counsel and parents in preparing for an inquiry and will highlight some recent case studies.
Lisa Colin, Esq. and Kim Mack Rosenberg, Esq.

Know Your Vaccine Exemption Rights
What are my exemption options? Where can I get reliable exemption info? What qualifies for a religious exemption? Do private schools & daycares have to accept exemptions? Does my exempt child really put others at risk? When can the state override an exemption? What if my ex & I disagree about vaccinating our kids? Can children consent to vaccines? When do I need an attorney? How can healthcare workers avoid vaccines? What can I do about changing vaccine rights? The answers may surprise you!
Alan Phillips, Esq.

Understanding the Medicaid's EPSDT Mandate
Participants will learn about Medicaid's EPSDT mandate, applicable in all 50 states as a funding stream for the treatment of children with disabilities, including Autism spectrum disorders. It is available regardless of family income in at least 36 states. Medicaid's EPSDT mandate is the greatest treatment funding secret ever concealed. Access to it by any disabled child (up to the age of 21) who is enrolled in Medicaid is a Civil Right conveyed by the Social Security Act since 1989.
Steven Kossor, MA

Know Your Life Planning Rights for an ASD Family Member
Michael Sanders and Lisa Rudley will describe the intricacies of financial, economic, legal, and practical planning that each family should explore to ensure all the rights and needs are met for the entire family. Government benefits on how to obtain and maintain appropriate coverage will be discussed. They will take you through a real-life case study demonstrating how thorough planning can help you avoid the potential pitfalls of little or lack of planning.
Michael Sanders, MBA and Lisa Rudley, MBA

Anatomy of an Autism Claim 101
In this new seminar, insurance attorney Jodi Bouer and billing and coding expert Yvonne McNamee will explain the major components of your insurance policy, and break down the insurance claims process to demystify how you can obtain coverage for your child's autism therapies. They will identify key arguments and strategies that you can use to maximize your reimbursments. Please bring your coverage and coding questions to the seminar, which will be highly interactive with an extensive Q&A period.
Jodi Bouer, Esq. and Yvonne McNamee

Know Your First Amendment Rights: The Wakefield Inquisition
The unprecedented journalistic attack on Dr. Wakefield and colleagues after their 1998 paper on autism and bowel disease has begun coming apart at the seams. Now that Wakefield has filed a defamation suit, and a judge in England cleared the paper's other senior author of all wrongdoing, it's time to ask: How did Murdoch's London Sunday Times and the British Medical Journal get away for so long with getting the story so wrong? How long will it take the mainstream media to do its job and report the real facts?
Dan Olmsted

Green Track

Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves: How the Green Movement Can Help Your Family Achieve Wellness
Green is everywhere, but what does it mean for families struggling with autism? We’ll start by exploring how the autism and green communities are aligned to help one another achieve healthiness and happiness. Then, we'll demo green resources and tips and tricks to get your family making greener choices today! Join us if you're ready to make green lifestyle changes on your path toward wellness!
Alicia Ontiveros

Cleansing Your Home with Green Building and Interior Design
Your home is your sanctuary, yet many building products and furniture contain harmful chemicals that taint air quality in your home. In this hour, you'll learn about the latest trends in green building and see products and materials that you can incorporate in your home design. You'll also walk away with proactive steps for any budget that will get your home cleaner and safer for your family.
Lisa Elkins

Organic Gardening -- Get Growing This Season!
Whether you have two feet or twenty feet in the yard, every home can incorporate a garden. Planting with the family can also be a theraputic activity that helps parents and kids connect with nature. Late May is the perfect time for warm-weather vegetables and this session will teach you how to get started!
Alicia Ontiveros

Fermentation

FEATURED SPEAKER: Fermentation Basics
Learn simple and safe techniques for fermenting vegetables and live-culture soft drinks so that you can prepare these healing probiotic foods and beverages with confidence at home. In our bacteria-phobic culture, people often approach these foods with fear, worrying that they may accidentally be growing bacteria that could make their families sick. This workshop will demystify and explain the process. There will be ample opportunity to answer any questions you may have.
Sandor Ellix Katz

Fermentation Basics
Learn simple and safe techniques for fermenting vegetables and live-culture soft drinks so that you can prepare these healing probiotic foods and beverages with confidence at home. In our bacteria-phobic culture, people often approach these foods with fear, worrying that they may accidentally be growing bacteria that could make their families sick. This workshop will demystify and explain the process. There will be ample opportunity to answer any questions you may have.
Sandor Ellix Katz

NAA Safety Track

Bullying and Autism: Practical Resources for Families
Children with autism are particularly vulnerable to being bullied due to differences in communication, motor skills and social cognition. While it's important to help students with autism learn how to deal with bullies, successful practices create environments of respect throughout schools and include peers, teachers and administrators. This session offers practical advice to help advocates combat this serious social problem.
Leslie Phillips

Wandering: Keeping Our Loved Ones Safe
Incidents of missing children and wandering-related deaths are being reported in the news with frightening frequency. Drowning deaths associated with autism elopement remain a leading cause of fatalities among children and adults on the autism spectrum. This presentation will discuss recently published data on wandering and its effects on the family, lessons learned from case studies, implementation of prevention strategies at home and school, and resources for caregivers.
Wendy Fournier

Shouldn't School be Safe? Preventing and Eliminating the Use of Aversives, Restraint, and Seclusion
Many students with disabilities continue to be subjected to the use of restraint, seclusion, and other aversives as part of their education and behavior intervention plans. Many of our schools have not yet gotten the word that these techniques are inherently unsafe and can result in serious injury, psychological trauma, and even death. This presentation will help parents, advocates, and teachers understand how to work together to eliminate these dangerous and counterproductive techniques.
Pat Amos, MA

Suppression of Science

Wesley's Story: Hurt and Healing After Mercury-containing Vaccines
When my son's diagnosis of autism was superseded by that of mercury-poisoning due to vaccines, I began two inextricably linked struggles. The first was healing my son from the devastating effects of off-the-chart mercury toxicity. The second was advocating to protect other children from being unnecessarily injured by vaccines that contained this unwarranted vaccine component. Wesley is now pursuing a high school diploma, and my advocacy has taken me from Washington DC to the United Nations.
Lisa K. Sykes, MDiv

Politics and Economics of Healing
This talk explores the suppression of information via control of mainstream media and illuminates means of supporting and healing the body by taking back control of our own and our children's health with natural, legitimate remedies. How does the larger-world picture impact what real medicine is available to children with autism, and how do you access it? The power to heal is yours!
Robert Scott Bell

FOIA Exposes CDC Lied Claiming Mercury in Vaccines is Safe
In 2004, Dr. Brian Hooker started demanding documents from CDC regarding thimerosal and autism via FOIA. The documents revealed CDC colluded with scientists to lie about the causal relationship between thimerosal/mercury in vaccines and autism. Because CDC is withholding hundreds of relevant documents, Dr. Hooker with attorney Robert Reeves are in Federal Court to compel the CDC to release the information. Tim Bolen is helping with strategy and publicizing this atrocity in his Bolen Report.
Brian S. Hooker, PhD, PE, Tim Bolen and Robert Reeves, Esq.

FEATURED SPEAKER: Vaccine Nation: A Novel Dramatizing the Vaccine Safety Debate
My journey from conservative investment banker and believer in the integrity of the corporate world to Big Pharma skeptic, novelist and vaccine choice proponent was an eye-opening one. It culminated in my novel, Vaccine Nation, a thriller dramatizing the vaccine safety debate, about a gutsy documentary filmmaker who is handed whistleblower evidence about the US vaccination program. She races to expose it before a megalomaniacal drug company CEO can have her killed.
David Lender, MBA

Prospects for Justice for Children Injured by Vaccines: The Experience of the Omnibus Autism Proceeding
Vaccine-injured individuals may obtain compensation for their injuries only (with narrow exceptions) through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Over the last decade thousands of claims have been brought before the VICP by families of young children claiming vaccines have caused their children’s neurodevelopmental disorders, often diagnosed as autism. In the overwhelming majority of cases, these claims have been rejected, ending any chance for justice and compensation for these victims. Mr. Krakow and Mr. McHugh will explore the reasons underlying the denial of most claims for autism in the VICP and the possibilities for obtaining justice in the future.
Robert Krakow, Esq. and John McHugh, Esq.

The End Game
This talk traces the history of the autism epidemic from its origins in the 1988/1989 developed-world birth cohorts through the risk for children born today and into predictions for future prevalence rates. It charts the revolutionary shift from medical dogma to the validation of parental insights. It offers solutions in place of conflict and paths to healing and prevention. The implications for the future of the practice of medicine and science will be discussed in the context of dealing with controversy in situations where policy and profit are influential factors. Its messages will be ignored by those in power and the more dire of its predictions will result.
Andrew Wakefield, MB, BS, FRCS, FRCPath

Student Scholars: Autism--A Sibling's Perspective
Zack will share his experiences living with his autistic brother Ethan. Using his witty personality and brash sense of humor, Zack will bring light to the subject of autism and share his story: from finding out about autism, to accepting autism, to becoming an activist and getting his first book published at the shy age of fifteen. Get ready, because you're in for a real treat!
Zack Gonzalez