Aditi Shankardass

Dr. Shankardass studies the brain. She says 1 and 6 children have a developmental disorder. This is a growing problem in the United States. The most important factor is that many of these children are diagnosed only by symptoms and not by analyzing the brain. Dr. Shankardass says, “It seemed so intuitive to me to diagnose and treat a brain disorder accurately it would be necessary to look at the brain directly.”

Dr. Shankardass also says, “Looking at behavior alone can miss a vital piece of the puzzle and provide an incomplete or a misleading picture of the child’s problems.” She came across a team at Harvard that took this evidence and came up with a groundbreaking technology. They use an EEG or electric activity in real time allowing them to watch the brain as it performs various functions and detect slight abnormality in any of their functions. Then they use a program called brain electrical activity mapping which triangulates the source of that abnormality in the brain. Then another program is used called statistic probability mapping which performs mathematical calculations to determine if any of these abnormalities are significant allowing them to provide a much more accurate neurological diagnosis.

Dr. Shankardass became the head of neurophysiology for the clinical arm of the team and used this technology for helping children with brain disorders. She had a 7yr. old boy named Justin that came to her clinic with severe Autism. Justin’s mind would space out a lot and Doctors told his parents that he was never going to be able to communicate or interact socially and he may never develop too much language. Dr. Shankardass used this technology on Justin. Come to find out Justin didn’t have Autism at all but he did have brain seizures which she put him on medicine for. Within 60 days of being on this medicine his vocabulary went from 3 words to 300 words and his communication skills improved drastically. Justin is now enrolled in a regular school.

The Doctor says, “Research shows that 50% of children diagnosed with Autism are actually suffering from brain seizures.

I think Dr. Shankardass makes a very valid argument. It only makes sense to me if it is a brain disorder then the brain should be examined. If I could ask this Doctor one question it would be, why don’t more Doctors use this technology instead of just handing out a diagnosis because surely not everyone can have the same problem?