Long Chain Fatty Acids and TV

It has been quite a weekend

Over the weekend, after a binge at the local library, I was reading a book called The Late Talker: What to Do If Your Child Isn't Talking Yet by Marilyn C. Agin, Lisa F. Geng and Malcolm J. Nicholl. It's a pretty good book overall. Its strength is in apraxia, but there's also some really good information on autism spectrum disorders as well in it: many of the suggestions for apraxia work for autism as well. This is also the only book I've read that talks about insurance codes and how important it is that your provider enter the "correct" code (a topic that highlights just how crooked the whole insurance scam is no matter how useful/necessary). If you want inspiration about working in the system to get your child help, this is a very useful book.

But the part I found most fascinating was a chapter devoted to omega-3 fatty acids and their effects on children with speech delays. The book was published back in 2003 but that means little to me. The book that helped us figure out how to keep Rachel from screaming for hours in the middle of the night was published back in the 70s/80s. I only mention this so that anyone reading has an idea of how old this information is.

Anyway... at the time of the book's writing, no one knew why it helped children (just like many parents aren't entirely sure why a GF/CF diet seems to help their child). It was speculated that long chain fatty acids are one major part of myelin, the insulation around nerve fibers. If myelin is damaged, the ability of neurons to "talk" to each other is damaged as well. A lack of myelin also affects gross- and fine-motor skills.

Well, when I read that, I thought of Rachel. Her delay spreads across many areas (for example she didn't start jumping until she was five).

I'm still going to do research on it through the week to see if anyone else has followed up on this, but because it won't hurt anything, I'm giving her some flax oil I've been using for myself. I started Saturday and already I'm noticing she's calmer and a bit more interactive than usual. We'll see where we are in another month or so. If I don't see any increase in progress... well, I won't make it one of my "must have" supplements in her diet, like wheatgrass (currently given as part of Kid-e-Mins) or calcium.

In line with language acquisition, we have decided to make a new rule: no TV on weekdays.

Why? I'm glad you asked. Guilt. Lots and lots of guilt. See, when the TV is off, I've noticed Rachel interacts with her sisters and brothers more... Sarah definitely interacts more... and interaction is key to increasing language and social skills. When the TV is on more, I've noticed less interaction. I feel I would be a bad parent if I took away an opportunity for the girls to increase their language acquisition.

But the thing that pushed me over the edge was reading The Plug-in Drug by Marie Winn. There's so much wonderful information packed into this little book it would take a while to write about it, but I do want to say that it makes an excellent case (matched by my own observations) that TV, because it caters primarily to the non-verbal side of the brain, actually diminishes language acquisition. In fact, the most frightening part of the book is when Winn points out a study that showed the original studies on Sesame Street were flawed. The children cited who made progress watching Sesame Street also had increased interaction with and rewards for learning from adults. The heavy viewers (not publicized) who didn't have this interaction started to fall behind in language acquisition.

Like I said, this info matches my own experience and turning off the TV was also the advice given to us at the Autism Treatment Center because they had discovered the same thing. So, TV only on weekends.

It won't be hard. We don't have cable, we don't have good (if any) reception, and DVDs are easy to stash/hide. What will be hard is the withdrawal. :( I'll let you know if we're still alive at the end of the week. :)