Nourishing Hope for Autism

Nutrition Intervention for Healing Our Children

Third edition © 2008

The phrase ‘autism awareness’ is a buzzword today.  The most important thing to be aware of regarding autism is how many children are recovering from autism due to the kinds of biomedical interventions described in Nourishing Hope.  Let Julie Matthews tell you HOW the recovery stories at Generation Rescue, the Autism Research Institute, and described in Jenny McCarthy’s book happened.  Julie Matthews sees recovery happen time and again in her clinical practice.  She doesn’t just offer touching personal stories to inspire you – instead she offers detailed instructions on how you can make recovery possible for your child, and the steps you can take to accomplish that.

Julie Matthews’ clinical practice specializes in childhood developmental disorders. Her work is conducted by applying basic biochemical science to selecting dietary and other approaches to restore normal biochemical function – and hence health ­– to  each of her clients. 

Nourishing Hope is about choosing the right interventions for your child from the vast number of choices available involving diet, nutritional supplements, lifestyle and detoxification.  Julie Matthews reviews these choices, explains which ones make sense and takes you through the step by step process of deciding which ones will help your child heal.

Despite its very broad scope, Nourishing Hope explains what you can do to get your child better in a simple, step by step fashion suitable for parents who have no medical background or special training.  Nourishing Hope makes biomedical interventions accessible to everyone. It provides all the background information you need to understand what you can do on your own, what you need help with, and how to start down the road to recovery. 

Nourishing Hope is practical – it is based on Julie Matthews’ extensive clinical experience with children and their familes – it teaches you how to watch your child for specific symptoms and reactions that are significant.  It explains which tests may be helpful. It helps you work through the issues that arise with picky eaters, children who can’t take pills, all the concrete, practical issues that arise because you have a real child, not a theoretical example some doctor made up as a ‘case’ in a medical textbook.

Nourishing Hope is an excellent book for people trying to figure out where to start in helping their child.  Regardless of whether the child has autism, ADHD, pervasive developmental disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, epilepsy, learning disabilities, behavioral or psychiatric problems such as bipolar or oppositional disorder, or just allergies and asthma, the material in Nourishing Hope is likely to help.  This also makes it a great book to share with other families unfamiliar with biomedical approaches for helping their child.  It is explanatory enough for someone who has never heard of ‘biomedical’ or ‘autism diets’ or ‘nutritional supplements’ to figure out where to start, yet has so much technical content that it is a useful text for physicians specializing in the field.

The information in Nourishing Hope helps families and health care providers eliminate a child’s digestive problems and distress, rashes and eczema, aggression, obsession and pain.  This bring about real improvements in the children’s cognitive ability, neurological function, ability to focus and lets them sleep through the night.  As a consequence speech, eye contact and language improve and toilet training becomes easier.   In addition, the pain and distress many unfortunate children experience daily is relieved.

The book provides an extensive and carefully selected list of internet resources on all the topics people may need to learn about so they can address their child’s particular situation with a carefully tailored and individualized program.

Nourishing Hope provides a synopsis of the most common nutritional supplements, covering not only the biochemistry that makes them effective but the practical issues of how to use them with your child.  This information lets the parents select the supplements that will be most beneficial for their child.

For many families the process of helping their child recover from autism or other developmental problems begins with diet.  Many leading experts agree.  Dietary modification is something parents are comfortable providing and taking care of on their own.  Putting their child on a healthy diet is something parents can do right away.  It is something they can do without expensive professional help.  Putting children on the right diet provides the proper nutrients to let them heal quickly, and eliminates foods that make them sick. Nourishing Hope provides step by step instructions on how to do this. Nourishing Hope then provides details of further interventions that may be combined with diet.

Nourishing Hope provides detailed, practical guidance on how to tell which diet is best for your child.  For example, many people put their child on the GFCF diet because it is well publicized.  For some children, this is the best choice.  For others a different diet may be better.  Overviews of each possibly useful diet are provided along with detailed indications of how to figure out which child needs which diet, and how to alter any one of these diets to tailor it to the specific needs of an actual child.  All the potential problems with each diet are explained so they can be avoided rather than learned about the hard way.  Nourishing Hope empowers parents make good choices regarding diet, nutrition, other interventions, and gives them the tools they need to help their child recover normal health.

Nourishing Hope also explains the scientific principles underlying each diet – and each nutritional supplement or other intervention – so the parents understand how and why these are helping their child recover. This understanding also lets the parents persuade other adults to cooperate so they can can make practical compromises to let their child eat at school and socialize with friends without slowing their recovery.  

The author’s extensive clinical experience lets her carry this scientific WHY and HOW the food you feed your child directly affects their body and brain forward – providing a practical roadmap for getting started with dietary intervention, evolving it to respond to the child’s specific needs, and customizing the various approaches so as to provide a step by step guide to getting the child well.

Nourishing Hope is the fundamental reference guide for parents and physicians who want to know how to help children with developmental disorders.

What expert autism doctors have to say about Nourishing Hope:

This book is full of helpful information for families eager to learn the best principles of nutrition for the optimal health of children.

Elizabeth Mumper, M.D.

Medical Director, Autism Research Institute

Julie joins a small group of doctors, researchers and parents who believe there are reasons to be hopeful and interventions worth trying. This is a "must read" book for parents of ASD kids.

Lisa Lewis, Ph.D.

Author, Special Diets for Special Kids

Nourishing Hope helps me support my patients by providing both complex scientific information and practical steps for implementing a healthy diet for children with autism.

Nancy O Hara, M.D.

Board Certified Pediatrician

Julie has done a masterful job at breaking down the complexities of the various medical diets into an easy and understandable format. Her knowledge of nutrition and how to incorporate healthy eating for autism-spectrum children is truly unique.

Kurt Woeller, D.O.

Medical Director, Stillpoint Center for Integrative Medicine

I encourage my own clients to read it again and again.

Anonymous

What parents had to say about Nourishing Hope:

This book really inspired me and helped my son tremendously

This book is very informative. The author is right on the money with everything she says.

AWESOME Autism Diet Guide

Excellent first read re: autism diets and autism nutrition.

Julie Matthews has put together an excellent resource for anyone who wants real information that will impact health and quality of life for those with autism.

If you are new to the world of Autism, or new to Biomedical treatments, this is the book you need!

Get it! First book that gives a parent ALL the information to correctly put an autism diet into place.

Outstanding guide for parents and practitioners

It is so easy to read and I reference it all the time.

Julie makes the various diet possibilities understandable.

Nourishing Hope gives you the information you need to do things for your child on your own – removing toxins from the home, healthy grocery shopping, understanding diet options, knowing what over the counter nutritional supplements are likely to help – and makes it especially easy for you to take action and do something by providing practical suggestions and charts you can copy to bring to the store or put on your fridge.  Get Nourishing Hope now and help your child get well!