Helping Your Child with Autism: A Home Program from Chinese Medicine (Qigong Sensory Training)

This book is a comprehensive, how-to manual for parents on a home program that has been shown to improve symptoms of autism. The core part of the program is a fifteen-minute massage that parents give their child once a day for at least five months. The book gives detailed, easily understood, step-by-step instructions for parents on the Qigong Sensory Training treatment as well as information from Chinese medicine to help them understand their child's autism. It includes massage techniques to assist the child in making eye contact, in calming down, and in making transitions. A DVD demonstrating the massage and the Qigong Sensory Training techniques is included with the book. This massage can be given to typically developing children as well as children on the autism spectrum.

Dr. Louisa Silva received her Medical Degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1979, after which she began her practice of family medicine. Her patient experiences led her to investigate alternative healing practices in addition to her Western medical training. She finished her training in Chinese medicine in 1990 and then began to explore how Western and Chinese medicine could be integrated to best benefit families. In search of a deeper understanding of health, she went on to earn a Master of Public Health degree from the Medical College of Wisconsin, and her board certification as a fellow in the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture. All of these experiences contribute to her work today. Dr. Silva lives in Oregon and practices medicine in a way that integrates Chinese medicine with preventive medicine and public health. One of her goals is to provide non-invasive, gentle treatment that uses resources to which her patients already have access.

In 2000, when the son of a dear friend was diagnosed with autism, Dr. Silva became aware of the devastating impact of the autism diagnosis on families, and the lack of effective, research-based treatments. She decided to bring a treatment that had been developed in Europe for children with autism to the United States with the hope of placing real tools in parents' hands to help their children. After joining the Teaching Research Institute at Western Oregon University, she developed and evaluated a training and support program in which parents give their children qigong massage. The program also trained early intervention professionals to train and support parents and work with children directly. During her series of careful scientific study over eight years, she continued to refine the initial massage protocol to arrive at a program parents can use without professional intervention. During this time, Dr. Silva created the Qigong Sensory Training Institute to coordinate treatment, training and research for young children with autism. She serves as director and is the lead researcher and trainer in the Qigong Sensory Training protocol.