I direct a nutrition clinic in a large center for children with special needs, the Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. My “kids” can have everything from mild learning disabilities to genetic disorders that affect growth and development to profound intellectual and physical impairments that cause them to be unable to Read more
Parenting
Last week, findings from a small but notable University of California–Davis study showed that intervening earlier than usual with infants who show signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can help prevent them from developing the disorder by the time they reach age 3 or 4. For perspective, we spoke with Einstein’s Dr. Lisa Shulman, a Read more
Back-to-school shopping, new sneakers and first-day outfits, sharpened pencils and fresh notebooks in oversized backpacks by the door: As a parent, these are the images I’ve come to associate with the start of every school year. But with my 20-plus-year history as a developmental pediatrician specializing in autism at Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Children’s Read more
A common refrain from the parents of infants and toddlers whom I see in my practice in developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Einstein’s Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center is: “We almost cancelled this appointment. Since the doctor referred us, the baby started to roll over, sit, walk, talk, behave, socialize . . . etc.” Sometimes the Read more
In the first recent piece of good news about the child obesity epidemic, the latest statistics on preschoolers—those 2- to 5-year-old bundles of joy whom we worry about so much—suggest that they’re less obese than they used to be. Between 2003/2004 and 2011/2012, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there was a huge Read more
I read with interest the recent blog post on The Doctor’s Tablet by Dr. Iris Lesser on using medication to treat ADHD. I appreciate my colleague’s concern about a backlash to overuse of these drugs. I felt compelled, however, to write about a factor in ADHD treatment in children that is often overlooked. That factor Read more
