Curing Autism Together

Our autistic daughter's langage keeps progressing spontaneously by taking Citicoline & Ginkgo Supplements

Our autistic adult daughter Anna keeps progressing in her language at a faster rater than in the previous few years since I've been adding Citicoline and Ginkgo supplements to her diet.  We're still doing Duo Lingo Chinese language program (just passed day 1,000 straight) and this was very slowly helping her progress (maybe a new or unexpected statement once a month or so) to now one a week, perhaps more.  I stopped writing some of them down but decided I should go back to it, because later I just forget that she said altogether and why not document the changes?

Yesterday our daughter said "I have options" when she was talking about taking a shower or a tub bath, "options" being abstract as a concept and nothing I could teach her - she stopped leaning language at the level that could been seen or done as an action, and an "option" is something I've never heard her spontaneously say.  

About 10 minutes ago Anna said "Let the juicing begin" as she started the process of juicing celery (which we both drink for eczema reasons - see Medical Medium's books for more info), almost under hear breath to herself, her back to me as she took the lid off the juicer to put clean celery in the top.  She wasn't talking to me but said a fanciful expression spontaneously to herself, mostly.  Such a shock!  An autistic person who almost never says a new uncoached expression is a person recovering and making new connections.  

If anyone is interested in getting a link to these supplements email/ message me and I'll get that to you by email.   

Hope this helps others!

Our autistic daughter continues spontaneously using new expressions, today saying, "That's a shame" for the first time

I asked my autistic adult daughter, Anna, to click on various icons and commands to back up my computer via external hard drive, as usual.  After the backup had finished, I asked her to click on "eject" to prepare to remove my backup external hard drive from my computer.  She had done so but it was not responding, so I said, "Try again", then had to repeat that several times, which she did, but each time as she paused, we saw together that it didn't work.  As it continued to not respond to her mouse clicks, I stated the obvious, "I'm having problems with my computer."

Anna said, "That's a shame".

Later she said, "That's such a shame that your track pad mouse thing is broken". 

She has never used those terms to my knowledge in her life, and likely never attempted to do so as the result of prompting, and it's an expression noone in our house uses, so this is a spontaneous expression of new language skills. 

As I mentioned in a prior post, Anna continues to take citicoline and fish oil (omega 3's) but her ginkgo is out of stock, so her spontaneous emergence of never-before-used expressions is way down in frequency as I wait for them to be available again on amazon, but as you can see here, she still has new expressions about every month, which is way high for an autistic person but obviously low for normal kids.  We're grateful that her development speed as upticked after being at a crawl or nearly flatline in the last few years. 

Also, it matters the things I continue to do with Anna, including continuing to learn DuoLingo Chinese (we're at around 900 days straight) and ABM-like and cognitive coaching, such as I had her make the multiplication tables up to 12 twice and she got way better the second time - this week, plus having her write sentences in various ways to describe the same thing, which we did today.  It all contributes, but her development speed really went up after the started taking supplements (yes, I'm having some of them, too).  I'll keep you posted!

Thanks for reading!  contact me if you have questions. 

 

Our adult autistic daughter continues using new words every week while on Citicoline + Gingko supplement regime

I'm continuing to record the use of new words and expressions our daughter Anna is spontaneously using - correctly and in-context - since I started giving her Citicoline and Ginkgo supplement gummies bought online, daily.  I apologize for having missed several in the last few weeks, having forgotten them after not recording them immediately.  

Our adult autistic daughter's rate of spontaneous use of new language has continued with around one new word or phrase every week or two, which is compared with at best one every month or several since I started this gummy supplement combination, even though we've been out of Ginkgo supplements for a several days (less than a week) as we await a delayed Amazon delivery of another brand we're going to test out. 

Today Anna used the new verb correctly in context.  Our dishwasher had filled with 2 inches of water after last wash and we had repeatedly tried the button that forced it to try to clear the lines, in the end clearing the water, but today we were keeping out eye on it during operation since it is making unusual gurgling sounds during the draining part of the cycle.  Minutes ago I asked her to go check if the dishwasher was draining OK into the sink since it was making those unusual sounds again.  As she quickly headed over to check out the dishwasher, she used the new verb, "babysit", saying, "I was trying to babysit the dishwasher in case the water was going to fill up in the inside." 

Wow!! She has never in her life used the word "babysit" spontaneously!  You don't realize how impoverished an autistic person's vocabulary is until you see even a modest bump in learning and realize how glacial learning of language was previously by contrast.  I recommend these two supplements - ginkgo and citicoline - to improve autistic people's speech spontaneously.  

Our autistic daughter used another idomatic expression for the first time yesterday - Ginkgo + Citicoline Supplements seem to be helping her cognitively

Our autistic young-adult daughter spontaneously used an idiomatic expression in a sentence yesterday again, around 2 months after starting ginkgo biloba and citicoline, this time saying "No siree, no siree Bob".  This was in response to my pulling a stretchy-fabric with black gaiter from my neck up to my head, which momentarily looked like I had a spooky criminal mask like people wear to rob gas stations or something like that when they put on panty hose or a ski mask, and she reacted saying to take it off an saying she was scared that I was going to hurt her or kill her, it was then I realized the stretchy gaiter, which I was briefly having trouble getting off (it was tight, too long etc.), made me look like a criminal wearing panty hose or a ski mask on my face as she's likely seen in movies or the news (the gaiter had several partially transparent mesh sections), then approximately (from recollection since I'm doing this the next day):

• I said, "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not that kind of person."
• She responded, "No you're not that kind of person."
• I agreed again, "No, that's not who I am.  I'm your mom and we're friends.  I wouldn't hurt you."
• She concurred, with relief, "No siree, no siree Bob!", agreeing with me, then added, "not like the mutant ninja turtles with the masks" and made a few other comparisons.

I asked where she heard that expression from and she couldn't remember.

I was shocked to hear a normal idiomatic expression ike "No siree, Bob!" coming from her, something I have either never said in my life of so rarely or long ago I can't remember doing so, likewise with her father and brother.  It's just not something we say.  So again, she is either picking up expressions from youtube videos or picked up what this meant from her former Son-Rise Program facilitators both volunteers and paid who we used to have work with her.  This is how normal people/children learn language.  They just hear it in context and their brain pulls it up on another similar context where the expression fits a similar situation.  The supplements she's taking seem to be creating frequent new language expression. 

Ginkgo is supposed to increase blood flow to the brain, while citicoline is a source of choline/ betaine/ phosphatidyl serine - it can branch to feed either the needs of the liver or the brain, based on what the body wants to convert it into.  We all know autistic kids most likely were contaminated with heavy metals at a key time in development that prevented the formation of the brain's long-distance connections ("white matter", shown in studies to be lacking in autistic people), but how many remain in their liver and/or brains decades afterward?  Can more choline help somehow detox the brain, or perhaps grow neurons more effectively around contaminated areas in the brain?  Can improving liver function with choline and the betaine it can be converted into help the liver, which can start detoxing itself and or the brain? 

Stay tuned and I'll post new developments.

Could Ginkgo or Citicoline Supplements help autistic people to talk? Maybe in my daughter

My daughter Anna, now 22, just restarted Ginkgo supplements (gummies) after more than a week after we ran out.  On Jan 23rd 2023 (about 3 weeks ago) I posted my daughter, who isn't initiating new word with any frequency outside those I'm still teaching her, which still flabbergast me what she doesn't know - most words other than those we use with some frequency she has never picked up or half of what they mean - I'll have to do a post about this some time, but it's stunning how abnormal very affected autistic people's brains are working - hers anyway - I'm pretty sure I have high functioning autism but could pick up new words, not so for her, unless I'm doing ABM lessons with her which I haven't done more than a few all years. However during a discussion on Feb 14th evening about whether she had urgency to use the bathroom recently because I just had (I won't go into detalls as that's a bit "TMI") she said she had and I remember her saying "I had to skidaddle to the toilet/ bathroom [or to use the bathroom/toilet]" - I can't remember the end of the sentence exactly, the prior day because of also needing to use the bathroom/toilet urgently.  The key was her suddently adopting and using the verb "skidaddle" after rarely using a new verb neither I nor anyone in our family who she interacts with at this point ever uses, out of the blue.  As in the prior post, she didn't even notice she had used a new verb, which I assume she heard modeled in use by a prior Son-Rise playroom staff I hired/trained, by a video on youtube, or a Seinfeld show which she watches with us as a family and which she laughs periodically with great delight at the silly physical humor and delivery of some lines she understands. 

I suspect the combination of the Citicoline and Ginkgo supplements are possibly prompting this apparently spontanteous recovery that is not so spontaneous as to its impetus and origins.  I also suspect both may be required daily to generate this mental improvement as this is what I've seen (details below).

Back several weeks ago when I did the last post, Anna was taking both Citicoline (not a typo), a form of choline that can convert to Choline itself and then Betaine to help the liver pathway, good for those with heavy metals or other poisoning or viral issues, or the brain pathway - I think into phosphatidyl choline or "PC", good for people with brain issues like dementia and perhaps - I'm positing - autism, plus a Ginkgo gummy - good to increase circulation in the brain - to help prevent/improve dementia or help cleanse the brain of contaminants as are suspected in contributing to autism.  The Ginkgo she started taking near the beginning of December and Citicoline she started taking at the beginning of January, which makes me think if only one were more effective and I didn't notice a big burst of improvement during December, perhaps the Ginkgo wasn't as effective as the one we started few weeks before we saw that sudden burst of new language the third week of January when we started Citicoline.  On the other hand, when we ran out of Ginkgo several weeks ago not long after that burst of language, around two weeks ago, based on my reordering at least a week after the Ginkgo ran out on Feb 9th, which she only restarted taking after it was delivered this past Sunday the 11th which we may not have started until the next day, Monday the 12th, two days before she started saying a new verb yesterday on Feb 14th, my daughter continued taking Citicoline daily for those interim several weeks plus or minus up to a week without any spontaneous use of new verbs, which would be consistent with the Citicoline not working.  A better conclusion might be that both supplements work together synergistically or at least additively enough to produce a spontaneous recovery in an improvement that is at once small but significant compared with prior spontaneous adoption of language - particularly use of verbs, verb tenses and time terms which she's really stuck on now and has been for years.   

I'll post more as I figure out if these supplements continue to help.  Thank you for reading! : )