We first took Liam to the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Development (BIRD) Centre in April this year. It’s one of the best appointments we’ve ever had with some of the nicest professionals we’ve ever met!
We found out that Liam has retained primitive reflexes (common in Autistic children) which are hindering his development and that his brain functioning is disorganised for example, if you shine a torch in his eyes his pupils are supposed to dilate – Liam’s expand, when he moves his head from left to right, the muscles in his arms and legs are tensing – again, this should not happen and means Liam’s body is working harder just to move his head from side to side. These are just a couple of examples, in total it was found that 93% of Liam’s brain was disorganised (not functioning as it should), to put that into perspective the typical level should be between 5 – 30% (nobody’s brain is perfect!) and it means we have a lot of work to do with Liam to get his level of dysfunction down to within the typical range.
How do we do this?
The BIRD use physiotherapy to send signals to the brain to inhibit the primitive reflexes and release new infantile and adult reflexes which should have developed naturally but didn’t. Liam’s Dad and I perform 6 exercises on Liam every night which take around half an hour and the two of us prompting his every move.
This is not a cure for Autism, rather to treat the underlying neurological condition present. The theory is if Liam’s brain is less chaotic and is functioning more efficiently this will enable him to concentrate more and stimulate his development.
Since April we have managed to improve Liam’s brain efficiency by 12% and have seen improvements in his sleep patterns, social and cognitive behaviour.
For more information please go to the BIRD website:
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