PALM HARBOR - Shawna Needham is willing to travel all the way from Ruskin to Palm Harbor twice a week to have her 4-year-old son, Ryken, cared for by a local chiropractor who uses an alternative approach to treating autism and its related ailments.

Needham said Ryken acted like any other precocious little boy until he turned 2 and received a required series of immunizations. He suddenly began to act-out impulsively, lost the ability to speak and control bodily functions.

Ryken was diagnosed with pervasive development disorder. PDD is a class of behavioral disorders that includes autism and Asperger syndrome. Children with PDD usually have trouble developing language skills and handling interactions with other people.

Traditional doctors merely wanted to put Ryken on drugs to stop him from acting out, but offered little else in the way of hope, Needham said.

A discovery

That's when Needham came across a book by actress Jenny McCarthy. In "Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism," McCarthy told about her autistic child and the hope that alternative medicine provided.

She read that some people believe vaccines traditionally given to infants and children might cause development problems. Mainstream science, however, says there is no evidence of any cause-and-effect link between vaccines or preservatives used in them and autism and related disorders.

In McCarthy's book, Needham also read of Palm Harbor-area chiropractor Lisa Marsh, a practitioner who treats autistic children at her Family Chiropractic and Natural Health Care Center, on Florida Avenue. She now is an avid supporter of alternative medicine and "Dr. Lisa."

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