Every member of the wonderful team of experienced professionals at Cell-El contributes greatly to our study. Today we introduce Leah Hochbaum, MA, OTR/L. Leah coordinates the recruitment of children to participate in our studies.

Contributing to the Understanding of ASD

Leah is a pediatric occupational therapist with close to 30 years of experience. She is also the parent of a young man on the Autistic spectrum. Leah works tirelessly to both assist her son and the many children she works with as an OT. She researches and studies newly developing treatments based on the current understanding of immune dysfunction in Autism Spectrum Disorder. The treatments include stem cell therapy, FMT, medical cannabis and more.

Leah joined the Cell El team about six years ago in order to contribute her experience and knowledge to the study. She believes it is important for parents to understand that there is a biomedical basis for ASD. If better understood, this basis could serve as the foundation for treatment as well as greatly improve the child’s condition and level of functioning.

Recruitment Coordinator

Through her work as a liaison between families and researchers, Leah speaks directly with parents and opens their eyes to the progress in ASD research. Leah also speaks with physicians here in Israel providing them with a better understanding of the biological basis for ASD. She thereby enables them to provide more effective treatment. In most cases physicians treating ASD are not yet examining or addressing these biological factors and treatment is limited to medications which attempt to minimize challenging behaviors.

Cell-El strives to provide physicians with a deeper understanding of possible medical issues, which may be at the root of ASD behaviors. It is theorized that by bringing about change in root cause medical issues – such as immune dysfunction – there will be a direct change in the child’s behavior as well.  Leah hopes to be a part of bringing change and new possibilities to the lives of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and their families. We are very grateful to have Leah as a part of our team!