On a typical Saturday afternoon, Paolo Puno sits at the dining room table poring over his iPad.
The Richmond eightyear-old is concentrating deeply on his computer game, a puzzle that involves using straight lines to slice up complex shapes into equal pieces.
When the puzzle proves to be too challenging, Paolo goes online and watches video clips posted by other gamers. He studies the videos closely, observing the techniques needed to advance to higher levels of the game.
Beside him, Paolo's mother Cristina Puno glances over and smiles at her son.
Like her son, Puno has relied on the Internet to help her through challenging situations.
When Paolo was three, he was diagnosed with autism and Puno went online to learn more. She was not alone.
Almost 70 per cent of Canadians who use the Internet at home searched for health and medical information in 2009, according to the most recent Canadian Internet Use Survey, published by Statistics Canada.
That's an increase of more than 10 per cent since 2005.
With so many misleading messages and conflicting perspectives about autism, making informed treatment decisions for children can seem like an impossible task.
Further, new University of B.C. research suggests that such websites are onesided and confusing.
For Puno, learning that her son Paolo was autistic was a shock.
She and her husband had suspected their son was delayed - Paolo wasn't speaking at age two.
Still, the doctor's words were a blow for Puno.
"It felt overwhelming, like something big fell on my chest," she recalled. "I couldn't believe that this was happening."
An autism diagnosis can be daunting for parents, which affects as many as one in 150 Canadian children.
Because each case is unique, it's difficult to predict how these young children will respond to intervention.
In Paolo's case, the doctor sat down with the Punos and presented the facts.
At the end of the meeting, Puno and her husband were handed a folder containing pamphlets on the disorder. It was up to them to figure out what to do next.
Many parents use the Internet to make important health decisions.
However, it isn't always easy to understand, and there is a large volume of literature to get through.
Nina Di Pietro, a University of B.C. researcher in neuroethics, says it's easy for concerned parents to be swept up in the abundant information online.
"There are thousands, if not millions of websites," she said. "There is a lot of information that parents access online that is not necessarily correct."
Di Pietro recently led a study analyzing the content on popular websites run by groups advocating for the awareness of childhood brain disorders, including autism.
The results of her work were published in February's issue of the peerreviewed journal Neuroethics.
The researchers focused on sites with the highest number of page hits and examined the types of autism interventions discussed on these web pages, and the tone of these messages.
They found that close to 70 different treatment options for autism were mentioned on three of the websites they analyzed.
The therapies ranged from gluten-free diets to behavioural interventions. All of the options were described as promising and effective.
This is a big concern, said Di Pietro. Not all of these treatments are as effective and safe as they appear online.
"Because messages about these different treatments are overwhelmingly encouraging, this could lead to confusion in terms of which treatments to try and which ones not to try," she said.
"These websites weren't doing a very good job at helping these parents make treatment decisions."
- For the full story, go online to www.richmond-news.
