Photo credit: Courtesy of the Benjamins
“Brad had seizures beginning at 9 months of age,” said Dr. James Benjamin, father to Brad and Kenny Benjamin. “This isn’t unusual for children on the autism spectrum. He continued to meet the normal milestones until about 18 months old when he stopped talking. He then became more fearful of environments that were loud or had a lot of people there.”
James R. Benjamin, M.D., Joyce Benjamin, Kenny Benjamin, Brad Benjamin, ‘Leia Warren and Claire Connelly hosted an MTV Benjamin Brothers Reality Show reception at The Graham Hotel in Georgetown with a mission to help bring awareness for all Autistic Americans as well as all Autistic people globally.
Most of us are in the dark about autism, so we asked Dr. Benjamin to clarify some issues that we found ambiguous: What are the first signs, are there degrees of autism, is there any correlation between vaccines and autism, a theory widely promoted by actress Jenny McCarthy?
“It was not until age 3 that he was actually officially diagnosed with autism at The Kennedy Krieger Institute,” Dr. Benjamin explained to Hollywood on the Potomac. “Kenny was evaluated by Childfind at the age of 18 months and diagnosed with PDD ( Pervasive Developmental Delay) and placed in speech development through the at-home teams. By the age of 2 years he was in Early Child education and going to school 3 days a week which was increased to 5 days a week the next year. Brad and Kenny attend the same special Ed school until I withdrew them both when Brad was 6 to home school them.”
“Brad was using 2 words in a sentence when I took him out of school at the age of 6,” he continued. “They would force him to sit in music class while he screamed and held his ears until it was over. When I home schooled them I avoided things that made them uncomfortable and used the things they loved to get the information into them. They loved the TV and videos so we used Videosmarts, computer smarts, Disney alphabet computer games and other edutainment type of software to teach them. They LOVED to put closed captions on the TV and watch their favorite shows. They read the words as they heard them.
You may have heard that people with autism hear in pictures. Every word needs a picture. If there is no picture for a word like “is” “the” “and” the written word affords that picture. My children learned language through repetitively watching the same shows and games and used the phrases they learned from the shows in everyday situations. Brad and Kenny’s favorite phrase was ‘It’s for any situation.’ I have no idea what that phrase was from but they loved it! The two of them spoke their own language and jargon. One would start the phrase with some mumbling and the other would finish it clearly.
The IQ is different between my sons probably due to the anti-seizure medications. Dilantin is known to decrease brain development. We are lucky that we weaned him off at the age of 2 ½ yrs old. I believe the key was decreasing their stress and thereby their cortisol levels, their immune system was improved and there was less inflammation in their brains.”
There has been so much controversy about the correlation between childhood vaccines and autism so we asked him to weigh in on the issue.
“Vaccinations affect the immune system…that is what they are supposed to do,” he explained. “What we don’t know is how certain genetic predispositions and deformities affect the processing of those vaccinations and cellular changes made by the medications and preservatives.
The other thing that I don’t believe has ever been addressed is how the vaccines given to the mother prior to conception may have altered her immune system to create a problem in the child once they are given the same vaccine. I will not agree or disagree with the vaccination theory. I think it will be interesting to see if vaccines skip a generation in being administered, does the rate of autism decrease. We won’t know until we get into the next generation.”
Brad and Kenny are moving on to a new stage of their lives, one of more independence and self reliance. It won’t be easy, but they are determined.
You can tune into their MTV Reality Show by checking out the schedule here.
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