After years of treating patients and analyzing scientific data, prominent Harvard researcher and clinician Dr. Martha Herbert offers a revolutionary new view of autism and a transformative strategy for dealing with it. Autism is not a hardwired impairment programmed into a child's genes and destined to remain fixed forever, as we're often told. Instead, it is the result of a cascade of events, many seemingly minor: perhaps a genetic mutation, some toxic exposures, a stressful birth, a vitamin deficiency, and a series of infections. And while other doctors may dismiss your child's physical symptoms—the diarrhea, anxiety, sensory overload, sleeplessness, immune challenges, and seizures—as coincidental or irrelevant, Dr. Herbert sees them as vital clues to what the underlying problems are, and how to help.

The greatly increased incidence of autism cannot be accounted for solely by a classical genetic mechanism. Evidence is mounting that autism and other neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders are created by complex genetic and environmental interactions. The Children's Institute, a pediatric rehabilitation hospital in Pittsburgh and the Chemistry Department of the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences of Duquesne University recently studied blood and hair samples from 30 children with autism compared to age, sex, and socioeconomically matched controls. A unique set of findings will be described, which could inform treatment studies. This research team also completed a case series study of 10 children who slept for two weeks in an ISO 5 cleanroom environment with a parent. The findings of this study will also be reviewed, which support further research on the use of cleanroom environments for children with autism.

The microbiota is increasingly being recognized as a major player in human health and disease. Dr. Williams will present his research findings that demonstrate intestinal deficiencies in the expression of genes involved in carbohydrate metabolism and transport in children with Autism and gastrointestinal disturbances and how these deficiencies may foster an abnormal microbiota. The potential health impacts of these molecular and microbial abnormalities will be discussed.

I will present findings from Autism360's database of >80,000 symptoms in 1832 two to nineteen year-olds. Our results show the product of a new approach called Fourth Paradigm Data Intensive Science, currently applied to research in cosmology and earth science remote viewing and proposed for its value to medical research. This work is the first to analyze clinical narrative data within that paradigm - in which, large, structured data-set analysis differs from hypothesis driven research. Instead it exploits the capacity of information technology to find patterns in large numbers of related data points. Such patterns permit the data to answer questions we did not know to ask. My presentation will review two bodies of literature related to the autism spectrum: Gender and body mass index. The data I present will reveal intriguing patterns that could be found by no other method of data collection and analysis. These patterns reveal previously unknown interrelationships in symptom profiles among individuals characterized by body mass index and gender. These interrelationships invite scientists from many disciplines to suggest paths for future research and treatment.

This session will examine the effects of the gestational and perinatal environment on the developing neural and immune systems as they may pertain to autism. It will cover current theories regarding the influence of environmental exposures, including xenobiotic exposures and infection during gestation, as well as the effects of maternal microflora on development. In addition, we will discuss the role of maternal immune function in neurodevelopment during gestation and the potential effects of perturbations in maternal immune status on behavioral outcome.

A healthy pregnancy begins a year in advance with proactive steps by both parents to reduce risks and improve fertility, pregnancy, birthing and the long term health and development of the child. The session provides a review of related nutrient functions, deficiency symptoms, lab tests, dietary suggestions and supplementation guidelines.