Causecast

Why I Participate

When your child is diagnosed with a brain injury like autism, the world becomes a very frightening place. Parents have to stick together because everyone else sure does. The school officials stick together to ensure that your child receives the minimal educational benefit they can provide even if that means spending hundreds of thousands of dollars more than they would in litigation if they had done the right thing in the first place. The doctors will stick together by denying that parents could possibly know anything about treating their own children. Insurance companies will stick together claiming that autism is not covered because it is behavioral and not medical. And pharmaceutical companies will stick together swearing that "their research" shows that vaccines did not harm our precious babies who were just fine until they got their shots. Who can we turn to? Each other! There are lots of treatments out there and not every one works for every child. All we can do is get the word out about what we have tried. What has worked for us. What has not. And let each parent decide what is best for their own child.

About Me

I am a mommy to 3 precious children. My middle child, Zack, was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 years old. Thankfully, here in Richmond, a new school called the Faison School was just a pilot program through Virginia Commonwealth University. This school used the principles of ABA to treat young children with autism. Zack was just the 6th child in this new school which now treats over 70 children with 40 hours of intense ABA each week. Zack was a student there for 4 years and while, he made gains, he was by no means any where near the wellness we had envisioned. Then my brother had a child with Down's Syndrome - 2 special needs kids in one family is just not fair. But as Daddy always says " Life is not fair!" In his search to help his own son, he came across an organization in Philadelphia called The Institutes for the Achievement for Human Potential www.iahp.org . They teach parents how to teach their own children and are achieving remarkable success. My brother and his wife attended the course "What to do About Your Brain Inured Child" and immediately came home and began their 2 month old on the programs. My brother urged me repeatedly to just look into it. At first I brushed him off because frankly, I was just beat down. I could not believe that their could be a place getting the results like I was hearing about. Plus I was tired of fighting with school systems and insurance companies and doctors and money in order to afford all this stuff. But finally, he prevailed. First I read the book, What to Do About Your Brain Injured Child" by Glen Doman. It made sense. I took the Institutes course and came home and implemented what I learned with Zack. It took a year and lots of obvious change in zack to convince my husband to take the course too. But he did and Zack was accepted into the Intensive treatment program. And it has been the best thing (and the "'cheapest" I might add) we have ever done. When Zack began on the Institutes program, he was neurologically about 18 months in a 6 year old body. Now after 4 years of programming, he is far superior to his grade level in understanding. He speed reads adult level books and is beginning Algebra 2. Language continues to be his biggest area of concern. He has only about 50 verbal words but he can type out entire conversations on the computer! Every day his verbal language gets better and better. I attribute this to the Institutes four fold programming. Every child receives a tailor-made physical, physiological (nutrition and breathing), intelligence, and social program which is taught to the parents to be run at home.

My Interest

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