Barry Humphries on Pedophilia

Donald Friend

Australian film maker, Kerry Negara, who produced a film on the subject, ‘A Loving Friend‘. According to Negara, who interviewed the boys, now adults, the Australian art establishment kept silent on the issue, essentially sanctioning it.

Actor, comedian, writer, Barry Humphries AO CBE (aka Edna Everage/Les Patterson)

Barry Humphries as Edna Everage in the early 1970s

Donald Friend gave the boys money to attend school, gave them work, and lodging but clearly not without ‘cost’.

Donald Friend

If a white child of 9-12 was school fees and pocket money in exchange for sex, I doubt we’d consider the pedophile doing this ‘benevolent’.

Barry Humphries is now set to play The Goblin King in the upcoming film, The Hobbit.

Barry Humphries in the early 1970s

A goblin is a legendary evil or mischievous illiterate creature, described as a grotesquely evil or evil-like phantom.

I wonder if Barry Humphries’ Goblin King will be somehow ‘benevolent’ in a world of small Hobbits.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.

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Barry Humphries views on ‘benevolent pedophilia’

INNER LANDSCAPE

Am I person, am I label?
Am I fragmented or stable?
Shall we dissect me on a table,
Like an experimental rat?

Am I a picture of diversity?
Some sociologist’s perversity?
In a room at university
I played a manic cat.

He postured and he thrusted,
Suggestive language that disgusted.
I never hinted I mistrusted.
I knew men like this before.

He was a rep for one normality.
Took the right to play my sanity
In the cause of his own vanity.
His hand would close that office door.

My inner landscape he had probed for.
His was written on that closed door.
Arrogance had made him so sure
He was master of his game.

Familiar strangers he collected.
Suggestively he then erected
A presentation that protected
Him from facing up to shame.

by Donna Williams, from the book, Wierdos Like Me.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

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Inner Landscape

When I learned in 1990 whilst qualifying as a teacher, I learned that my first book, Nobody Nowhere was to be published, I wanted to know if there were any other writers with autism in the world and heard via an autism professional (this was pre-internet boom) that there was one author before me, Temple Grandin, and was given the info that I could apply for a copy of her book as it was pretty much that kind of system… you couldn’t go into a shop and order or buy it like you can today. So I never got to read the 1986 version of Emergence published by Arena Press.

Nobody Nowhere came out in 1991, published by Transworld/Doubleday (now Random House) and became an instant international bestseller going number 1 in the USA, Canada, Japan, Norway. It spent over 10 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. Temple’s book, Emergence, was then updated the same year (1991).

In 1994, the sequel to Nobody Nowhere, Somebody Somewhere, became published, again an international bestseller, making number one in Canada, Japan and Norway and still a bestseller in the USA. By 1995, Nobody Nowhere was translated in over 20 languages around the world. I had by now become an autism consultant and public speaker and my first text book, Autism; An Inside Out Approach, was published as well as my first book of poetry, Not Just Anything.

Temple’s second book, Thinking in pictures : and Other Reports from My Life with Autism, was published by Vintage Books the same year (1995). Temple then became well known the same year after being described by Oliver Sacks in the title narrative of his book An Anthropologist on Mars (1995). A a year later, in 1996, her first book, Emergence, was then taken out of its ‘educational text’ status by Warner Books in 1996 and became widely available to the general public.

Now writing academic books, by 1998 I had moved to Jessica Kingsley Publishers and had two more books published in 1998, the third in the autobiographical series: Like Colour To The Blind, and a text book, Autism and Sensing; The Unlost Instinct. Then another text book; Exposure Anxiety; The Invisible Cage in 2003, the fourth in the autobiographical series; Everyday Heaven in 2004, and my third text book, The Jumbled Jigsaw in 2005 along with the republication of Not Just Anything.

The covers of the original 1986 version of Emergence: Labeled Autistic and the rewrite which then got published in 1996, come from completely different places, very different takes on autism. The original shows Temple’s smiling face, but the photo has been sliced up as if by scissors, shattered like its broken glass, against bright red alarmist background with a labeling stamp of ‘AUTISTIC’ stamped almost abusively across the eyes of Temple’s smiling 11 year old face.

original 1986 cover of Emergence Labeled Autistic by Temple Grandin and Margaret Scariano

By stark contrast, the cover in 1996 is of a girl in a field, arms out stretched in flowing floral garb as if celebrating nature and freedom. So now Temple’s autism was being repackaged as celebration, not tragedy.

1996 cover of Emergence: Labeled Autistic by Temple Grandin

Have you read the 1986 version of Emergence Labeled Autistic as published by Arena Press before it was updated in 1991? Given Arena Press published Academic and Therapy publications, I wonder what was revised between 1986 and 1991 and whether those revisions were made to then allow it to become a mainstream publication by Warner Books in 1996. What was lost? What was added? It would be great to hear from anyone who had read both versions and what the differences were.

It is usual to rewrite a text book, after all one gains new knowledge. But an autobiography is different to a text book. An autobiography is a snap shot in time, a sort of ‘life as I saw it’. So its certainly not usual to rewrite an autobiography. It’s natural to ask why an autobiographer would do so for it is essentially a rewriting of one’s personal history. Did Temple’s ghostwriter, Margaret Scariano, have more input on the rewrite, or less?

Temple’s formal diagnosis was in adulthood, with Aspergers (her family had ‘diagnosed’ her with autism at age 4 (and then her teachers apparently also agreed with her family’s ‘diagnosis’ of autism). Her only other formal diagnosis was of brain damage at age 2). It would be interesting to know if that formal diagnosis in adulthood was after 1986 and whether the 1991 rewrite was done in accordance with her formal diagnosis. If so how did she reflected on her autism before having a formal diagnosis of autism verses after having one.

Donna Williams In my case my formal diagnosis when Nobody Nowhere was written was of Childhood Psychosis (age 2) and was made in a hospital in 1965 (Autism was called Childhood Psychosis in the 60s). Later diagnoses included Language Processing disorder around 1972. Dr Lawrie Bartak confirmed my autism diagnosis in adulthood but one year after I wrote Nobody Nowhere… so Nobody Nowhere is not influenced by knowing of my diagnosis in adulthood, it was written in an attempt to understand what kind of mad I was (ie what was this psychosis I’d had since age 2).

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

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Emergence Labeled Autistic by Temple Grandin

KIMBERLY GERRY-TUCKER
Well, I’m a 45 yr. old woman; dx’ed with Aspergers in 1999. I enjoy alternative music, woodcarving (the chisel’s my favorite tool), mosaics, animals, walking, and simple pleasures.
I volunteer at a library and hospital doing clerical things; mostly involving alphabetical order.
When I see strings of numbers, I simply must add them and add them singly again until I get a single digit; then I assign spiritual meanings to the digit.
The Asperger’s is challenging, but I am at terms with it. I’ve done some real-world things like marry and have kids.
However, I find that my life-long journey with Selective Mutism (SM) is THE most serious obstacle I really have. It’s sometimes debilitating. Imagine your vocal chords and throat being an elevator shaft and when situations are prime, that elevator car gets into ‘freefall.’ Its like speech has no chance. My throat drops out, and my tongue *feels* swollen to monstrous proportions. NO chance for sound.
A person can get pretty good at avoidance techniques as an instinctual response to try and avoid this vulnerable, mute condition. All in all, the SM is like another person in the room choking me.
Add being autistic (Aspergers) to the mix and I’m clueless in some situations. One on one I do get by.
But I also feel I am so much more than a lifetime of being different and feeling different– I am embracing differentness; I am EXPRESSING my differentness through written word. It’s what I’ve always done; whether I was jotting notes to my deaf Grandma and having her answer me aloud; or dribbling silent tears onto the pages of diaries while scrawling words at a Mercedes pace.

DONNA WILLIAMS:
You’ve just become a published author. Tell us about the book.

KIMBERLY GERRY-TUCKER
It got its start in the pages of 17 diaries that I have kept throughout life. Around 1994 through 1996, I did some serious writing of the book- drawing from the diaries. At times writing until sun-up on an electric typewriter; and in those days if you did any revising (I did!), then one big change could impact all the pages that followed!
I got my first computer in the mid to late nineties and the bulk of what is now the book was stored on floppies. I started selling excerpts to various publications like Planet Vermont quarterly, Hearing Health, Curbside review, Thunder sandwich, LaChance anthologies, March St. Press and Kaleidoscope as well as some others. I even had a few stories in Women From Another Planet. This told me that my work was marketable but getting it into book form was out of the question because life took a macabre turn and the book was put on hold.
Between 2000 and 2005, my husband suffered and ultimately died of Lou Gehrigs. As a person living with Selective Mutism, I had to put my voice to use. I had to discover my voice as he became more and more disabled-to converse with medical machine suppliers, doctors, respiratory therapists and the like; as the disease stole his voice away.
After the death I got busy on the book again, this time writing about his illness and subsequent death and its asteroid like impact on MY life– Weaving that into the story: it was an ending I NEVER imagined for this book.
When all was written, I destroyed the diaries-from the first one with the bluebird on the cover right up to the last one-a black and white college ruled writing tablet. Gone were the handwritten sentences so full of passion; gone was the 14 yr’ old’s cursive lollipop letters of the earliest diaries and the 40 yr. old widow’s sad under-inflated o’s and a’s…I mourned them, the handwritten books….but they exist today, as the innards of one whole book.
So the book is about living through life’s stuff intact; loving, loss and the struggle that exists within me to communicate effectively and all the misunderstandings and chaos that a life as an Aspergers person collects like clutter in a hoarder’s house. I should know; I grew up in one!

DONNA WILLIAMS:
What does being a writer mean to you?

KIMBERLY GERRY-TUCKER
I liken it to an expedition to somewhere as yet uncharted; like straight through the overgrown tangle in my deepest brain folds! With a machete in one hand and mosquito net over my face I don’t wait for a path to open up before me. Rather; on the journey of writing I forge my own path. I leave the weeds as they strike me as beautiful. I cut paths around rocks and I don’t spare the the thorns and end up getting stung despite my precautions. The path gets forged in the end but what the cost? Did I leave the right things wild along the way or did I say too much; and ultimately that raw taste of chopping away at it all and feeling itchy afterwards stings after the publication. But without writing, there is little expression in my world where expression is hard to pull off. Writing is my music; the book is my rock concert.

DONNA WILLIAMS:
How did you stay disciplined and on track to write the book?

KIMBERLY GERRY-TUCKER
It comes down to that saying, ‘just do it.’ I love words. I HAVE to write. So I did. I do. All the time. I’m expecting book two at this time next year in fact. It IS tough work, especially when technology fails you: the pc goes on the blink, you save files and can’t find ‘em again, MsWord crashes and hrs. of data go unsaved. Exasperating, but I am pretty sure I have a patience about me and a tolerance for unforeseen obstacles.
They say to get back on the proverbial horse if you fall off or you will never ride? Well to stay disciplined and on track enough to write a book, you must know what you want to say and have an overpowering desire to express it. I wanted people to know that because an emotion does not readily show on the face; is not SEEN through facial expressions or gestures, doesn’t mean the person cannot or does not feel. I had to see the book through to completion to get that across. I had to. Before Communication Breakdown I ghost wrote Reborn Through Fire, which took about 8 or 9 months.

DONNA WILLIAMS:
What kind of people do you feel may find the book interesting?

KIMBERLY GERRY-TUCKER
Aliens, little-seen, mysterious cryptic beings, elves, hermits, oh and also people with selective mutism or Aspergers. Some kids are dx’ed selective mutes but never carry it their whole lives. Many of us do. I don’t see too many writing about it. Professionals may enjoy this book as an intriguing and interesting glimpse into my “conditions” for lack of a better word. Memoir lovers, ( the people like myself who like knowing how others tick and enjoy finding connections and similarities with another’s life)… people who read love stories will find something to suit them. And those who have suffered loss in their lives may relate.

DONNA WILLIAMS:
What responses have you had to the book?

KIMBERLY GERRY-TUCKER
Overall, quite good. Helen Irlen has written a nice review on the lulu site. My peers on the spectrum have been kind. Keri Bower (mother, advocate, author, filmmaker, and speaker) has compared me to her favorite modern day author-Augustine Burroughs ‘Running With Scissors.’
The mixed reviews come from family/friends who would probably rather that I never express myself if it means they get mentioned. I have to say though, throughout the writing process it was never about them. And I walked a tightrope of uncertainty; striving to keep up a balance between fairness and truth. Like the squirrel scurrying across the tension lines; flicking its tail and situating itself for balance; mine has been an unending balancing act and I am still flicking!

DONNA WILLIAMS:
Yes, every autobiographical writer must face that. Where can people order the book?

KIMBERLY GERRY-TUCKER
The book may go into a reprint with a bigger more well known publisher (someone’s considering it) but for now go to http://is.gd/f1mML
Or go to http://www.lulu.com and put

‘communication breakdown’

into the search bar at the lulu site.

DONNA WILLIAMS:
Wonderful. All the best with the book.

Warmly,

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

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Communication Breakdown

Type of Ticket

Adult $15.00 Concession $10.00

Type of Ticket

Adult $7.50 Child $5.00

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Donna Williams’ upcoming events for 2010

Ranging from surreal, to grungy, from romantic, to funny, from political to symbolic and everywhere in between, the poems were as diverse as the titles sent in.   I gathered them into a collection called Weirdos Like Me.  It’s a collection of poetry, art and surrealism.  Amidst the poetry are also song lyrics to songs by Donna And The Aspinauts with whom I am the lead singer and main singer-songwriter.

As a author, singer-songwriter, artist, sculptor, screenwriter, each element of my ARTism and my journey from autism into ARTism involved a series of mentors. In poetry, my mentor was the man who barely got to see it, my father, John Williams, who I knew as ‘Jackie Paper’. Sometimes ghosts make great mentors. I hope my works haunt you in a good way and take you to other places and spaces as art should.

Thank you.

Donna Williams

Ever The Arty Autie

http://www.donnawilliams.net

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm

http://www.aspinauts.com

This item originally posted here:

Weirdos Like Me

SNOW

Confetti soft, it fell, calling me, the girl from a land of sun.

From the window it took my heart.

My feet ran me down the stairs.

I turned, music box dancer in a world of falling sky

And I knew snow.

The dawn was dark, against the night.

White soot fell from black sky, around bare feet.

For the first time? Of course.

Snow virgin.

The prostitute stood pure in the snow.

It entered, holy into boots, and plastic bags, they crunched,

Binding homeless feet, and shoes with sole,

The snow came through the doors,

And all I could do was smile,

In this magic world.

Snow, do you not know, these dirty hands?

This mouth of sewer words?

These feet have wandered gutters of such privileged lands.

But here, you fall upon me, clean and bright.

Your frosted lips they kiss away the footprints

of a thousand dirty nights.

And laugh, is all a fool can do

as you, ignore my inequality,

pretending like no humans do

that I’m in fact an equal

in this crazy human zoo.

Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

This item originally posted here:

Snow

I developed a male persona when I was 2.  Willie was strong, staunch, egalitarian, determined and a survivor.  The abuser in my room, a friend of the family who took advantage of the 60s freedom in my crazy household, probably saw me as that doll.  And if not for becoming this male persona I don’t think I could have handled what happens to pretty dancing dolls in that household.

In the book, Nobody Nowhere, I gave all that an exorcism.  But in the song, How To Be a Boy, I play out that struggle between being girl, being boy.  I’m not sorry that Dolly Burger was a disappointment to the ideal of how to be a girl, a good girl, a real girl.  And I’m not sorry I’m a Broken Biscuit.

Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

This item originally posted here:

Good Burger

I first met Dr Danczak when I was working as an autism consultant in the UK.  When I saw kids who had physical symptoms I’d send them up to him and I was pleased to find most would end up in a healthier state and more switched on and together once their health issues were addressed.  Here’s our interview

DONNA WILLIAMS
Hi Ed.  Tell us a bit about Dr Ed Danczak.  How did you get into biomedical treatment of those with autism?

DR ED DANCZAK

I had been using acupuncture and later a variety of complementary medicines with the encouragement of George Lewith and Julian Kenyon in Southampton, UK. I was asked to open a partner clinic in Manchester. I attended a lecture by Len McEwan who was using a novel immune technique called EPD to treat autistic children, and he claimed that their functional capacity could be substantially improved, and quoted cases where this had happened. I did some research, and found that there were a number of physicians with similar experiences, and decided to find out what was being done. There were a number of different approaches, no specific programme and very sketchy evidence of efficacy. Very soon afterwards, out of the blue, you called me up in 1996 and asked me to see a child with autism and I started to apply some basic therapies to evaluate their effects.

DONNA WILLIAMS
When people use the term ‘biomed’ in the context of autism, it pretty much conjures up words like ‘chelation’, ‘mercury’ etc.  What’s your take on that?

DR ED DANCZAK

In 1996, the chelation theories had not been proposed, and there was no controversy over vaccine. The treatments that we started to use involved fixing basic building block deficiencies such as Magnesium, Zinc and managing the gut and immune system function. All the ingredients that we chose were based on papers published in the mainstream, journals such as the Lancet, BMJ and new England Journal of Medicine. We relied on peer reviewed papers, and evidence that was repeatable by third parties when experiments or trials were quoted.

Later on I was asked to submit evidence to the Scottish Parliament on mercury and autism together with the use of chelation, which at the time had no evidence to support either an association or a possible treatment route. Subsequent population studies using fine-tooth epidemiological research has shown no association between mercury containing vaccines and autism, and there is no toxicological reason why the sticky heavy metal atom of mercury should be easily removed by chelating agents.

As an occupational physician, when heavy metal exposure occurs the first rule is to consider very carefully whether chelation should be used at all. It can lead to toxicity from the very metal that you are trying to remove. For example in lead poisoning, use of chelation is associated with an outpouring of lead from sequestered (and safe) bone stores which increases the likelihood of toxic lead symptoms occurring. indeed the risks of chelation causing epileptic fits due to removal of “good” minerals such as zinc and magnesium is very real. Chelating not a treatment option for an office or unsupervised setting.

Mercury is present everywhere on planet earth, and the human body is actually quite tolerant to low levels of exposure. There is no evidence to support the assertion that autistic children as a group have any specific intolerance, although there is always anecdote.

In 1996, the chelation theories had not been proposed, and there was no controversy over vaccine. The treatments that we started to use involved fixing basic building block deficiencies such as Magnesium, Zinc and managing the gut and immune system function.

As an interesting side issue, lead poisoning causes cognitive impairment, and this is part of the differential diagnosis of developmental delay in children. The US has shown lead poisoning to be a significant feature, but this is reversible and responds well to removal from exposure. Chelating is unnecessary, as the body usually deals with lead quite well. Other heavy metals such as cadmium which used to appear in plastics and also from contaminated vegetables and earth, also causes a reversible cognitive impairment, but this too responds very well to removal from exposure. Indeed in he cadmium smelting industry proposals were made to use cognitive tests as a way of assessing cadmium effects as there is not a linear correlation between exposure and impairment of function.

DONNA WILLIAMS
What are the range of improvements you’ve seen in people with autism who have used biomedical treatments?

DR ED DANCZAK

Autism is a behavioural description, and therefore comes in many aspects.All children were fully investigated in a non invasive way to establish deficiencies of co-factor minerals such as zinc, magnesium and manganese. In my book I have described children who had epilepsy, no control over their bowels and an absence of speech who, over the course of approximately 2 years gained control over their fits using supplements of zinc magnesium and manganese, together with bowel support, and anti-convulsant medication. The development of speech is always associated with a change in behaviour, and this improves as speech becomes more articulate. Other children have used similar regimens from a much higher functioning level gaining significant improvements in interaction and educational achievement. An relative deficiency of zinc alone may lead to low growth with children slipping into the lower percentiles of the growth chart. This was a concern with one parent whose child should have been tall, his parents were both over 6 feet high, but when given zinc, he rapidly started to grow and catch up to where he should have been on the predictive chart. The concurrent ADHD showed improvement as well.

DONNA WILLIAMS
Taking ‘autistic’ as an adjective, do you feel there are aspects of ‘autism’ which are about personality or neurological difference which are not related to gut, immune issues?

DR ED DANCZAK

Autism is a behavioural description quoted in DSM IV and the ICD 10. Underlying illness should always be addressed. For example, in my book I describe autism responding favourably to the use of anti-convulsant therapy. Ear infections and persistent glue ear are higher than expected in children with ASD. There is good evidence to support the claim that clearing up glue ear improves hearing, and therefore communication, as speech is heard clearly. Some children presenting to the clinic had clear speech impairment with a strong nasal component and very flat in tone consistent with hearing through a thick tube of mucus in the inner ear. Once the ear condition had been addressed the child became responsive and the features of behaviour which pointed to an ASD diagnosis gradually began to resolve. The inability to deal with infection properly is an important feature in the genesis of symptoms picked up during early childhood.

In the gut, problems seen in the clinic usually related to persistent diarrhoea, poor toilet training, associated with mineral deficiencies of zinc magnesium and often manganese. The use of replacement minerals, probiotics and gut support medication from complex homeopathic preparations is only a little different to that used in African children with the consequences of malnutrition. The persistent diarrhoea in ASD leads to a biochemical profile in the hair similar to malnutrition seen in the developing world. Managing basic building blocks is the essential tool and not overly complex therapies with a base only in hypothesis.

There is a clear genetic link between the occurrence of the broader autistic spectrum in families and the occurrence of specific autism in children. The genetic link is not straight forward. Genes affected seem to be involved in brain and gut development together with those related to allergy. The objective of many researches has been to identify and manage the genetic components to reduce degrees of autism, but so far this goal has proved elusive.

Personality is as much a feature of the environment in which the developing child is brought up and the evolution of the brain through the first 25 years of life or so. Much has been invested in comparison between the Burt model of identical twins separated at birth, brought in different environments particularly related to material wealth. The achievement of the child in the comfortable background was claimed to be different and possibly better than the child who was brought up in the deprived community. Certainly family disturbance is a common feature in ASD where ADHD has been diagnosed. It was established in Liverpool that children, form disturbed homes, who were offered a bed to sleep in the day and an area of the school where they could be insulated from disturbance was highly beneficial in behaviour and educational terms. When this was used the need for Ritalin and other similar drugs was dramatically reduced.

DONNA WILLIAMS
In the culture-cure debate biomed is seen as part of society’s fixation on demonising or eradicating autism.  Do you feel the two can be reconciled?

DR ED DANCZAK

Autism is not a demon condition, nor is eradication a rational response to a behavioural disorder diagnosed by description only and with no signature biochemistry or genetic tests.

Many of the symptoms attributed to autistic behaviour can be produced from a range of social and clinical conditions. Some have no inter current illness, many children do.

The pharmacological effects of cytokines, the short proteins released in the immune system are very powerful. They have effects on sleep, and brain circulation. resolving a low grade immune system upset with night sweats, can lead to a significant improvement in the child’s cognitive function when these are addressed.

Many parents want their child to conform to the coffee morning expectation of normal development. This is entirely natural and in fact seems to have been the indicator that led some parents to seek advice on delayed development. However, children do not all develop at the same rate, even on the physical aspect of walking. Language acquisition can be slower with some children, and a premature diagnosis of autistic behaviour can be very difficult to establish. Demonising particular behaviour has always been part of society as the herd seeks to exclude those it believes are different in some way. The common example of bullying in the school playground occurs because the group does not like one aspect of a child’s personality or clothing.

Although my clinic was always about managing the physiological aspects to try to get the body to work as well as it could, support for the parents, steering them towards social support and expert parent programmes substantially reduced their anxiety, which reflected in the child’s response. Pre-school management of development and inter current illness is very important. Equally, the desire to start education early, as low as three years old, will probably lead to an industry of investigators trying hard to identify children whose development is part of the normal range but who may only be a little slower than their peer group.

DONNA WILLIAMS
You present yourself as working holistically.  Could you explain this in the context of biomedical treatment.

DR ED DANCZAK

I have summed up the difference between holistic medicine and the conventional approach as that between reductionism, that is to say, treating the most specialised niche of illness such as the localised lung infection compared to dealing with the person as whole. This would involve attention to the individual and their needs, management of any infection, or poorly functioning area such as the gut, the use of physiotherapy, and avoiding the use of take this and go away type medication.

This view is an interaction between the physician and the patient. This is extended in the management of ASD to a doctor, parents and child relationship. The development of the child is critically dependent upon the parents, but will also require a team of others including Educational and child psychologists, teachers, therapists, medicines, and supplements to help make the child’s body work properly. From this list it is evident that the physician cannot be the sole purveyor of therapy.

DONNA WILLIAMS
As a holistic doctor supporting biomedical interventions for those with autism who have gut, immune issues, which other types of issues do you see as relevant to the adjustment and development of a person with autism?

DR ED DANCZAK

Understanding is probably the most important issue. Parents attending the clinic wanted someone to advise them on a range of topics from support through to medication and supplementation. Many had no-one to talk to and had ideas that were based on erroneous conclusions in the grey literature, or the daily printed media and had been convinced about specific treatments which were not necessary or were only realistically useful in the otherwise stable and well child.

The complexity of issues raised in recent years from the vaccine campaigners alone has kept large numbers of people occupied in contested debate. The outflow from this has caused substantial worry and confusion amongst parents who have been alarmed and frightened by a behavioural diagnosis which has become demonised in the media. The most important thing that a physician can do is sit and listen, and address concerns. A busy hospital or GP department with a short appointment time is no way to deal with this. As the the physician is often the lead member of the team what seems like a ten minute interview is never enough

DONNA WILLIAMS
Tell us about your online E-book.

DR ED DANCZAK

The book is a collection of informative essays intended to be taken a small amount at a time. The chapters go through the use of complementary medicine and shows evidence for the use of my approach in the management of children.

Chapter Six is the distillation of the interaction between different body systems that can have an effect on the developing child and commentary related to this. The Chapter can be seen on www.autismmanagement.net which apart from a flow diagram has indicators to where to go in the book to read it up.

There are case studies where we have varying degrees of responses from different therapeutic directions. The essential is that there is a marriage between complementary and conventional medicine, with each having something to offer, and improved outcomes when done together.

DONNA WILLIAMS
You’ve retired from practice now.  What’s that like?  How does a doctor hang up the white coat?

DR ED DANCZAK

When my dad was 83, I asked him what it was like to retire. He looked at me and said he thought he might consider it soon! He was still very active in the community and whenever someone asked him for help, he didn’t turn them down. I am similar. Although I don’t have the white coat on anymore, some of my old patients keep in touch if they have difficulties and when any parent shouts help, I will try to if I can.

Treating people in the clinic required intense concentration, and for every day in the hospital I needed a day to organise paper, treatments and medication. It was never confined to the 30-60 minutes of clinic time. I do miss the patient contact and the evolution of a child’s behaviour as interaction develops between parents and an awakening child doing toilet training, communication acquisition both verbal and non verbal.

DONNA WILLIAMS
Where can people find your book?

DR ED DANCZAK

Have a look at

www.autismmanagement.net

where a preview of the Chapters can be seen

DONNA WILLIAMS

Nice talking with you.

Warmly,

Donna Williams

–
Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.donnawilliams.net

This item originally posted here:

Autism, heavy metals and beyond – Donna Williams interviews Dr Danczak

Next, we take the show to Geelong West’s Woodbin Theatre on Jan 23rd 2010.

All future Aspinauts shows can be found at http://www.aspinauts.com

Warmly,
Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.

http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com

This item originally posted here:

Footsteps of A Nobody on Halloween.