I have a 22 months old daughter diagnosed to have Aspergers

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I just want to say thanks for all the advice, it is much appreciated. And yes, I am well aware that she has certain nutritional needs. The soya milk she is on is meant for children from 7 months on wards, and it has 300mg of calcium per serving, as well as other vitamins. She will be getting lots of fresh fruits like apple and banana etc. I will be buying fresh (not processed) vegetables, mixed packs, so she will have a variety of veg. She loves deep fried wedgies of potatoes, rice, chicken and bacon etc. She will be getting rooibos tea, apple juice, tea with soya milk and soya based chocolate drinks.

I don’t think taking away milk and wheat based products will leave her malnourished, there is corn & rice as well. Her porridge is called Coco Pops, and it is made with rice.

Thanks, I will do a google search for corn bread, here in South Africa, the product is labeled Maize flour.

Come to think of it, when she was on cow’s milk and normal cheese, she was constipated most of the time. It once got so bad, that she cried in agony, I had to get her meds for her tummy.

Tonight, after having been on the soya milk the whole day, she seems a little brighter and more energetic than usual. I am going to keep an eye on things and see how it progresses from here. It could be that the normal cow’s milk has made her feel a little sluggish

Sounds to me like she might be lactose-intolerant. That's fairly common and wouldn't be surprising even for a typical kid. Does she get stomach problems every time she drinks milk?

She could theoretically grow out of it--many very small kids have less efficient digestion than adults. That's why very small babies don't get cow's milk; they can't digest it. Yours isn't very much past baby yet.

Go ahead & talk to a nutritionist about getting her the right diet without the milk. Your pediatrician should be able to point you to one, possibly one specialized in kids (kids' systems are different, obviously).

Milk is "not the best food" for touchy digestive systems because it is not easily digested. Lactose is a complex molecule, and not everybody makes enough of the enzyme needed to break it down. It is nutritious, but if you can't digest it well, you can't benefit from the nutrition in it. If you can digest it, you should probably be drinking it (unless you're allergic or vegan or something)... but if you can't, it won't do you any good, and you'll get diarrhea, cramps, gas, and generally be pretty miserable.

I've never had trouble with milk. I would have been better off if I had had it as a child, I think. Or, at the very least, calcium supplements. But my mother didn't drink milk or eat wheat from the time I was nine to the time I was old enough to buy my own food, so neither did her kids. Weirdly enough, the only child helped by the GF/CF diet in my family is the middle, non-autistic, sister. My littlest sister has trouble digesting red meat but no problems with milk or wheat. I'm not even texture/taste-sensitive.

If you are seeing her with more energy without milk, she might have been using that energy trying to digest the milk or deal with the indigestion... But do beware that you can easily connect in your mind unconnected coincidences... It's not that you're not using logic; it's that the human brain wants to find patterns and searches through every bit of data it gets for patterns. That means you sometimes see patterns in randomness.

I sometimes wonder if the typical children suffer digestive problems because their parents don't pay as much attention to possible problems as the moms of autistic children do... in neither case is the neurology affected but both groups are a lot happier and more comfortable if they don't constantly have tummyaches.

Well, all I can do, is give it time and see if there is any visible results with changing over from cow's milk to soya based milk. The wheat is another story, It could be that she can cope with that, but I'm not going to take that chance. I will look into what foods can replace that.

Thanks.

It's not automatically milk or wheat. Some kids can't handle other stuff. And sometimes it's not digestive, but a taste/texture issue. Yeah... complicated.

One man's meat is another man's poison.

I've heard that soy is a problem for some people, too. You just need to pay attention and figure out what's best for your kid. And when she expresses an opinion, listen.

Keep in mind that it was the experts with their state-of-the-art understandings who bled George Washington to death. Autism is still a relatively new concept, and nobody really knows anything.
If they try to push you around, run away.

Question: I heard long ago that tolerance for milk is an ethnic thing, that people in certain areas of the world used cow's milk in primitive times and others did not, and that their descendants today still have those tolerances. Has anyone heard anything along those lines lately?

Not quite ethnic, but definitely genetic. The groups of people who started milking cows the earliest started having kids survive more often if they could digest lactose, so that trait gave those kids an advantage and got passed on. In other areas, where being able to digest milk wasn't so important, that trait wasn't such an advantage; and today, the people who trace their ancestry back to people who started herding cows later than most are also the people most likely to be lactose-intolerant.

Soy isnt good for you....its just cheep and easy to grow. It is difficult to digest and it messes with your thyroid. Most of this Autism diet crap is just people out to make money with thier gluten and casen free products. Its someones theory thats gone out of control thanks to people like Jenny McCarthy.

Who is Jenny McCarthy?

Jenny McCarthy -- Don't cry for us
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt73627.html

Personally, I believe Jenny might have part of the truth.
Like the six blind men and the elephant, we should be comparing notes rather than arguing.

On the other hand, I still want to argue about her use of the word, "cure."
And the "autistic" vs "person with autism" debate.

Here's another piece of that elephant: http://joyofautism.blogspot.com/

Ok, I've spoken to someone at this place

Autism Western Cape
autismwesterncape.org.za/resources

About the removal fo gluten and casein. It seems to be true for small children. aparently I can subsitute the cow's milk with rice milk & subliments.

Autism Western Cape is the group behind the Jail4Bail fiasco but they seem to mean well and I couldn't find any of the usual conflicts of interest (such as also running a health food store).

Regardless as others have stated a GFCF diet is only useful for specific digestive problems its not a cure all and even in the cases where it helps people on the spectrum its not a miracle while most are happy that it helps at all you cant really expect more than a mild improvement.

Just remember that everyone is different like in my own experience I tend to have the most sensory problems when I don't get enough gluten.