Kamran, 7, ASD

Kamran is seven years old.  We began neurofeedback training at age five, and he has made transformational progress since.

Since his infancy, Kamran’s mother knew he was developing differently.  Diagnosed with autism at the earliest point, his symptoms manifested as:

• Inflexibility with regard to activities and actions counter to his strong determination. A sense of consideration for others, recruitability and adaptation never developed.  Any suggestion he did not like resulted in impulsive, aggressive outbursts until he had his way.
• Speech did not develop beyond a few favoured expressions he appeared to embrace mainly for their melodic prosody. Trying both English and Farsi, he took to neither, seemingly rejecting the use of language as a means of expressing his needs, and gesticulations were mainly aggressive and inconsiderate of the ‘other’, including his little sister.
• Empathy and a sense for others’ feelings or emotions were absent, except for expressions of joy upon gratification of his needs and wishes, and overt dismay at not getting his way. His intrinsic positivity made it hard to infer cruelty either though when he pushed other kids over and they cried with pain.
• Loud noises and sudden movements would cause him to freeze in a state of fright, followed by emotional outbursts and aggression that would take time to calm him down from and severely interrupt any planned activities.
• Repetitive rituals enveloped him in a cloud of self-absorbed satisfaction. He could repeat a sequence of pretending to wash his hands and dry them under a hand dryer drawn on the bathroom wall tiles for a long time.  TV content was limited to his favourite youtube videos, mainly involving trains, although “Mr. Tumble” could provide some intermittent relief.  Doors were a particular fascination, as he repeatedly opened and slammed them with glee, to the extent that all doors inside the house had to be removed.

Physically, Kamran developed beyond milestones for his age; his coordination was good as was his sense of satiety.  He was highly energetic, jumping on sofas, running around the house making noises, and repeating his favourite act of sliding down the stairs (under close supervision) until exhaustion.  He became so strong by age five that his wanton pushes and punches were fearsome, particularly as they were unpredictable.  Kamran’s mother and two sisters were constantly challenged, and injury-prone; his mother had to cut her hair very short to avoid him ripping at it. 

The three sisters were challenged to the state of exhaustion each day, and had the additional stress of an inconsiderate neighbour who not only banged on the walls, which set Kamran off, but also expressed his intolerance by shouting abuse across the garden wall, confronted them physically, and smashed their car window twice.  The police were deemed unhelpful and the sisters took it upon themselves to document the terror and launch civil proceedings, finally leading to his prosecution and eviction years later.

School was a temporary relief, though frequent incidents required their premature attendance to pick him up and bring him to his familiar environment.  He was the highest physical achiever in his class, and they thought he had few role models there, despite its specialisation.  He was not advancing with regard to verbal skills, literacy or numeracy, and did not interact socially with others, though happy in his own world. 

When Kamran started neurofeedback age five, he was not ready to enter a new environment, not least due to his fascination with doors.  We therefore did sessions at his home, after he had been playing actively in the park, bathed twice, sat with his mother on the sofa while one sister massaged his feet and another fed him his favourite treat, pomegranate seeds with ice cream.  We eased him into the process by starting with his favourite youtube clip of an empty Underground train on the London Circle Line, and set about getting him used to wearing three electrodes while doing ILF / Othmer Method neurofeedback training for calming. 

After two such half-hour sessions, we felt confident enough to try putting a shower cap-like hat with nineteen electrodes on his head for a qEEG recording.  He was familiar enough with myself and the process that this worked straight away, and we obtained sufficient recording material for a brain map analysis. 

This revealed multiple sources of fear and anxiety; mood control and focus issues; and Default Mode Network irregularities.  Equipped with this knowledge, we then conducted Default Network Training, a set of much stronger and targeted protocols personalised to his needs, in the same manner as before, yet with far more substantial training effects.  Within two sessions, we were also able to increase session time to 1-1.5h, leaving him calm enough for bedtime.