The Brain Repair Institute of Canada in Okotoks, Alta. (Karie Cupolo/CBC)

If you listen to Claudie Gordon-Pomares, she has the cure for what ails your handicapped child.

A self-described neuroscientist, Gordon-Pomares runs an organization called the Brain Repair Institute of Canada out of a modest home in Okotoks, Alta., and claims she can cure autism and help children with cerebral palsy walk. She also says her technique, which has not been peer-reviewed by any scientific body, can stop seizures and correct other brain-related problems.

Claudie Gordon-Pomares, who runs the Brain Repair Institute of Canada, says she has successfully treated 98 per cent of her patients. (CBC)

In seminars across the United States and in Alberta, the French-born researcher tells parents with developmentally disadvantaged children: "We are talking about fixing the brain, fixing the brain forever, removing the diagnosis."

Her solution is a process that she has developed called MAPS, which stands for Monitored Multi-cortical Activities for Additional Pathways and Synapses. It relies on scents and the stimulation of other senses to get the brain to repair itself.

MAPS strategies could be as simple as picture games or could involve holding the scent of a strawberry to a child's nose and rubbing the texture of the fruit on the child's skin. The promised cures could come in as little as six months or as long as three years.

The 57-year-old Gordon-Pomares claims this protocol, which costs $5,000 for the first six months and $3,000 for subsequent six-month periods, has been 98 per cent successful, has been proven in studies and is backed by some of the world's leading neuroscientists.

However, an investigation by CBC News in early 2008 has found there is no scientific proof that the MAPS protocol works, and that the neuroscientists Gordon-Pomares claims support her do not in fact back her claims. In fact, there is no proof her academic background is genuine, either.

Calls to the universities in the United States and France that she cites for her credentials found evidence of some courses taken, but no actual degrees.

Even the Government of Alberta, which allowed parents of disabled children to use their discretionary allowance at the Brain Repair Institute of Canada as of June of 2000, delisted the institute by April of 2003 for its failure to provide peer-reviewed proof that its treatments work.

Dawn Delaney, communications manager of the Calgary Child and Family Services Authority, said the province entered into the agreement on the "understanding that the centre's work was to be peer-reviewed and there would be results provided to us. When the research wasn't provided, we ended the contract."

'I feel we've been duped'

The experience has upset Gordon-Pomares, who said the contract with the province was terminated for "philosophical reasons," but would not elaborate.

But it has also left a sour taste in the mouth of parents who put their faith in her methods. "I feel we've been duped," said Chris Wetz of Tampa, Florida.

In 2004, Chris and Holly Wetz discovered their one-year-old son, Matthew, had autism. "It really is devastating," said Holly Wetz. "It's like you go through a grief process because of all the hopes and dreams you had."

And when it comes to something as confusing as autism, she said, "It is like you are told you have cancer but you are not told what to do."

In their quest to do everything possible for their child, they tried unconventional therapies and, after some research, came upon MAPS at a seminar in Orlando, Fla. It was then being offered by the Gordon-Pomares Centre, which took on the more authoritative-sounding Brain Repair Institute of Canada label in the spring of 2007.

The Wetzes paid $9,000 US for a MAPS program designed for their child and were told that a well-known neuroscientist at the University of Lethbridge, Bryan Kolb, was in step with Gordon-Pomares. They called his office to verify there was in fact a connection.

At the time, Kolb was intrigued that Gordon-Pomares was attempting to stimulate the brains of humans in this manner. He had been doing something similar with laboratory rats.

Chris Wetz, of Tampa, Fla., spent $9,000 on treatment for his developmentally handicapped son and does not feel it was of any use. (CBC)

"So I was really enthused by it and thought, 'Let's go, what a great idea to try these things out and see if they work,'" he said in an interview.

Kolb then visited the clinic and talked to some of the parents about their experiences with MAPS. But without empirical evidence for the techniques that were being used, he was far from convinced.

More recently, after having reviewed what Gordon-Pomares says in seminars and interviews, he said she is overstating her connection to him and the results of his work.

'You can't make normal'

Kolb works with rats and he said there is a huge difference between the brains of rats and humans. Gordon-Pomares said Kolb simulated a stroke in the rats and used MAPS to bring them back to normal.

Kolb said: "We didn't use MAPS and they certainly aren't normal. You can't make normal after a brain injury."

Kolb is concerned with not only what he feels is the exaggerations of his work by Gordon-Pomares, but also with her claims for MAPS' success, especially when she says she is able to resolve a wide range of brain-related problems.

"Well, it's unrealistic, so it's a concern that parents' expectations are going to be unwisely set too high, which is a recipe for disillusionment for sure and, actually, frustration, I think, with the whole process."

No noticeable impact on son, Okotoks family says

The Skow family of Okotoks certainly felt that frustration. Their son Brandon, who suffers from cerebral palsy, epilepsy, pituitary problems and restrictive airway disease, was featured in a news piece that is promoted on the Brain Repair Institute website.

But the Skows say, in hindsight, that the MAPS protocol they tried had no noticeable impact on Brandon.

"I was told that she would be able to stop Brandon having seizures through her programming," said Debbie Skow. Gordon-Pomares "did believe that Brandon would walk. I personally thought it was a little far-fetched, you know, like I don't personally see that Brandon will ever walk.

"It's a dream. I mean, all moms in my situation would want our child to walk. Is it going to happen? I think we're daydreaming if we think it will. I don't think that there's a therapy that can have a child such as mine stand up and walk."

Some 'grains of truth'

When confronted with news that some of the parents involved with her institute doubted the success of her work, Gordon-Pomares countered that there were many who did back her.

In e-mails, she promised: "I will call two or three parents and give them your phone number to call you. I will call them today and if they are home, I will speak with them about your inquiry."

But she never provided CBC News the names of any clients who backed her work. It was the same with neuroscientists who were said to support what she was doing.

In a recruiting seminar in Calgary in January 2008, Gordon-Pomares spoke of Mark Rosenzweig, the retired University of California psychology professor who, in the 1960s, was one of those who proved that the brain is "plastic" and constantly changing.

Severely handicapped Brandon Skow of Okotoks, Alta. His parents were told the treatments would stop him having seizures. (CBC)

"Very recently, [he] was approached by a scientist at the University of Ohio," she told prospective clients, "and he said, 'There's no problem, I will put my name behind MAPS and demonstrate it, the validity of it, to the world.'"

When approached by the CBC, however, Rosenzweig admitted to being invited to Canada by Gordon-Pomares several years ago. But he did not go. The 85-year-old said he has no knowledge of MAPS and couldn't comment on it one way or the other.

One California expert who did communicate with Gordon-Pomares at length about her ideas is Bryna Siegel, an autism expert at the University of California at San Francisco. She said she considers much of what Gordon-Pomares says as "psycho-babble. It has got some of the right buzzwords in it, and it has got some grains of truth in it."

What upset Siegel is that clients of Gordon-Pomares are told to discontinue other regimens to devote themselves to the promise of MAPS. (Gordon-Pomares even suggests her clients should stop going to school because her protocol will be tainted if students are introduced to stress.)

"It is like saying all cancer could be treated with the same agent," said Siegel. "And in this case it's even worse than that because she has a treatment that isn't even proved effective for even one individual symptom."

Verification

As for her claims of being a neuroscientist, Gordon-Pomares said she does research on the brain so that label is applicable. Asked by CBC News for her academic background, she said she had a degree from Brigham Young University in Utah and a bachelors of arts in psychology and a master's degree from the University of Reims, completed by 1976.

When contacted by the CBC, Brigham Young said Gordon-Pomares took one course there and, after a search through its archives, the University of Reims said the only record it has of her is that she took some correspondence courses "from a distance" in the early 1990s. Prior to this, she appears to have achieved a degree called a DEUG from the University of Nancy in France, which is awarded for two years of study.

When told that Reims had no record of a Claudie Gordon or a Claudie Gordon-Pomares receiving a degree, Gordon-Pomares said she went there under another name, which she refused to disclose.

Maureen Bennie, director of the Autism Awareness Centre in Calgary, is calling for government officials to step in and verify everything about Gordon-Pomares and the claims of the Brain Repair Institute of Canada.

Bennie, who runs conferences on autism across Canada and in the U.K., said she sees too many parents "who are raw with emotion" having just heard their child was diagnosed with autism.

"If I jumped up on stage offering a cure for autism for $10,000, I'd be stampeded by parents with their cheques," said Bennie. "I think if anybody is offering a cure for autism or says they have a cure for autism, that has to be questioned. That has to be questioned not only by the parents themselves, but by the medical community and by the government."

[an error occurred while processing this directive]