Childhood Autism: English Arsonists destroy boy's Xmas surprise treat

An arson attack which destroyed a sensory room built as a Christmas present for a severely autistic boy has been condemned as a "disgusting and cowardly crime".

Fiona and Wesley Ratcliff, from Woodhouse Park in Wythenshawe, Manchester, had spent the last two weeks transforming the summer house into a safe play space for their seven -year-old s on Harvey, who suffers from Phelan-McDermid syndrome, (22q13) a rare genetic disorder.

They had planned to show Harvey the sensory room for the first time on Christmas Day, but instead they discovered it had been destroyed in an arson attack.

Wesley Ratcliff, 32, said: "Everyone was devastated. We had family come down from Scotland. They had put in the money towards helping us build it. They had all come down to see his face.

"We are all in shock. The consequence with what could have happened; it being so close to the house - I think we are lucky."

A guinea pig hutch next to the summer house had also been set alight, but the two guinea pigs escaped unharmed.

Mr Ratcliff, who is a support worker with autistic adults, said: "We bought the summer house at the beginning of the month, and the idea was to get it up and ready for Christmas.

"We painted it, put the flooring down, put the lights in, decorated it with pictures and painted it sky blue because Harvey is a Manchester City fan. It was just somewhere where he could go when he was having a hard time. I had put the final touches in on Christmas Eve."

But yesterday morning Mr Ratcliff found that the summer house had been destroyed by a fire.

He said: "The disco lights and a digital radio had been stolen. We had put soft floor mats inside which were completely burnt by the fire. The bean bag chair and a little stool and easel table were all destroyed as well.

"My opinion is that we have not been targeted, but that it was just a random attack. It was probably just some drunk teenagers, a one off. My wife is really upset and she is scared about being alone with the kids in the house."

Detective Inspector Jane Curran said: "This truly is heartbreaking, the family, like every other family across Greater Manchester, were really looking forward to showing their son his Christmas present when they woke on Christmas Day.

"Whoever did this really has no morals whatsoever.

"It is a disgusting and cowardly crime and I really would like anyone who may have seen anything or who has any information about this to contact us.

"Thankfully we think that the weather overnight extinguished the fire otherwise we may have been dealing with a much more serious incident yesterday."

Koegel Researchers Claim to have successfully treat Autism in infants

Most infants respond to a game of peek-a-boo with smiles at the very least, and, for those who find the activity particularly entertaining, gales of laughter.

For infants with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), however, the game can be distressing rather than pleasant, and they'll do their best to tune out all aspects of it—and that includes the people playing with them.

That disengagement is a hallmark of ASD, and one of the characteristics that amplifies the disorder as infants develop into children and then adults.

A study conducted by researchers at the Koegel Autism Center at UC Santa Barbara has found that replacing such games in favour of those the infant prefers can actually lessen the severity of the infants' ASD symptoms, and, perhaps, alleviate the condition altogether.

Their work is highlighted the current issue of the Journal of Positive Behavioral Interventions. Lynn Koegel, clinical director of the center and the study's lead author, described the game-playing protocol as a modified Pivotal Response Treatment (PVT).

Developed at UCSB, PRT is based on principles of positive motivation. The researchers identified the activities that seemed to be more enjoyable to the infants and taught the respective parents to focus on those rather than on the typical games they might otherwise choose.

"We had them play with their infants for short periods, and then give them some kind of social reward," Koegel said.

"Over time, we conditioned the infants to enjoy all the activities that were presented by pairing the less desired activities with the highly desired ones."

The social reward is preferable to, say, a toy, Koegel noted, because it maintains the ever-crucial personal interaction.

"The idea is to get them more interested in people," she continued, "to focus on their socialisation. If they're avoiding people and avoiding interacting, that creates a whole host of other issues.

They don't form friendships, and then they don't get the social feedback that comes from interacting with friends."

According to Koegel, by the end of the relatively short one- to three-month intervention period, which included teaching the parents how to implement the procedures, all the infants in the study had normal reactions to stimuli.

"Two of the three have no disabilities at all, and the third is very social," she said. "The third does have a language delay, but that's more manageable than some of the other issues."

On a large scale, Koegel hopes to establish some benchmark for identifying social deficits in infants so parents and health care providers can intervene sooner rather than later.

"We have a grant from the Autism Science Foundation to look at lots of babies and try to really figure out which signs are red flags, and which aren't," she said.

"A number of the infants who show signs of autism will turn out to be perfectly fine; but we're saying, let's not take the risk if we can put an intervention in play that really works. Then we don't have to worry about whether or not these kids would develop the full-blown symptoms of autism."

Historically, ASD is diagnosed in children 18 months or older, and treatment generally begins around 4 years. "You can pretty reliably diagnose kids at 18 months, especially the more severe cases," said Koegel.

"The mild cases might be a little harder, especially if the child has some verbal communication. There are a few measures –– like the ones we used in our study –– that can diagnose kids pre-language, even as young as six months.

But ours was the first that worked with children under 12 months and found an effective intervention." Given the increasing number of children being diagnosed with ASD, Koegel's findings could be life altering.

"When you consider that the recommended intervention for preschoolers with autism is 30 to 40 hours per week of one-on-one therapy, this is a fairly easy fix," she said.

"We did a single one-hour session per week for four to 12 weeks until the symptoms improved, and some of these infants were only a few months old. We saw a lot of positive change."

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