EVAN, a Syrian boy suffering from autism and who had previously not uttered a single word in four years, has stunned doctors by communicating in three languages after responding to nine months of herbal treatment and diet. Mother Roshen said her son was prescribed a diet by chemist Haifa Kayali of dates, nuts and pumpkin, excluding milk and milk derivatives, wheat and its derivatives, and sugar. Evan spent a week on the diet before beginning the herbal treatment. “I saw the improvement in his condition in a just few days, the first sign being when he started pointing at things,” Roshen said. A speech therapist who subsequently examined Evan told Roshen that he would not learn to speak if she continued speaking to him in both Arabic and Kurdish, but chemist Kayali, by contrast, said that Evan had responded well to treatment and that he was in a position to learn not only those languages but English as well. This prompted Roshen to add a series of children's English-learning books to the Arabic materials she was already using, and Evan now pronounces English and Arabic words clearly and can communicate with his mother in Kurdish. Evan is also able to write numbers and make telephone calls to his father. Roshen said she video-recorded every step of her son's learning process, and that coinciding with his improvement in speech, he has also developed an ability to interact with non-autistic children, express pleasure, and show interest in toys which held no attraction for him before. Chemist Kayali, who described the change in Evan as an “extraordinary result”, said that some Americans had pushed for autism treatment through diet but stopped after a while, despite its effectiveness, due to factors related to “medicine profits”. Kayali said of the diet that the dates provided all basic vitamins and minerals, pumpkin helped underdeveloped sensory organs, while nuts were of great benefit to the brain.
