SCI BILL: Partial ACC and language development??

[LIZARD]

Hey, Good Peoples. :)

Happy, happy Thanksgiving! :) I hope you have as much to be thankful for as I do. :)

I addressed this to Bill, because I appreciate anything he has to say about this, but this is for any of you with such experience. Something has been scratching my brain off and on about Drew for awhile now. We learned about his Chiari way back when, in December of '99, but after being reassured that surgery wouldn't be necessary, I shelved my concerns about it...until I started finding more and more parents whose kids have both ACM and autism.

Then I began to realize that his biggest area of weakness and frustration is expressive language, and I recall reading that ACC is a fairly common reason for such impairments. I think that, if it had been complete ACC, it would have been obvious, but what about a malformed corpus callosum, or one that's underdeveloped--say 10 or 20% is missing? How easy would something like that be to overlook on an MRI? How much could it impact on expressive language ability? He's not far behind, academically, except for language and reading comprehension.

Of course, I don't know if he has it or not, and I certainly hope not, but I think we should look for it on future MRIs, just to be sure.

Any input at all from anyone is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

LIZARD :)

[natashailg]

my son has thinning of the periventricular white matter and "thin corpus callosum" on MRI. no percentage was given for CC loss but it is less than should be....

. he has autism (diagnosed age five as not "classic" no lining up of toys but other things, repeatng videos, no imaginative play, playing with wheels of a car rather than playing brm brm etc) . his hypotonia/hypermobility is familial,

he has no speech but is using a VOCA - we working on sentence building but he will go for single words or pre-programmed sentences. he makes noises aaa eeee iiiii but no consonants (very occasioanl "nuh" for no) .

he can read. he learned from much watching of ABA sesame stret etc videos from age 18 months! he could pick out a BBC (to him = teletubbies) video from age 2 with no pictures on it. he likes/prefers to watch TV with subtitles on. follows the words on screen. he reads whole words and is beginning spelling - goes for first letter but gets frustrated when asked for second or third.
predictive spelling programme is working really well tho on his VOCA. (runs the Grid 2 software which has a typing predictive package - it comes up with predicted words with their pictures/symbols)

i also came across research showing possible link betwee ACC/thin Cc and autism and language developement but i dont hink any was conlcusive - certainly no one can look at theMRI and say what that child's abiltiies are. but given the MRI and his abiltiies we can conclude they are related.

let me know what research you fnd!

[LIZARD]

Hey, Natasha. :)

I can't thank you enough for this!! :D Drew was actually a lot like your little guy when he was little. Now, I'm even more curious...

I guess I wonder, too...and maybe Bill can answer this, if he's out there...do they have to know to look for a slight underdevelopment/thinning of the CC in order to find it in most cases? Obviously, complete ACC would jump out at a reasonably skilled radiologist or neuro, but is it like Chiari in that you really have to know a lot about it to appreciate what kinds of deficits (and their severity) can result in the case of missing "just a little" of it? Hmm....LIZARD's wheels are always turning! :rolleyes: :D

'Preciate it!

LIZARD :)