About Us

Jake reached every developmental milestone on time. He had 10 words ( single syllable words) by 12 months. He rolled over, sat up and walked on time. After his yearly immunization well visit, he regressed and by 14 months he rapidly lost all language, eye contact, and had tunnel vision. He started with idiosyncrasies and stimming behaviors. It would be a couple of the hardest months of our lives and finding support, resources, and the right services would be a tedious and exhausting task.

The year was 2001. Hearing the "official" diagnosis from the neurologist gave me the most sinking feeling my heart every experienced, but then to top it all off, the dr with the worst bed-side manner on the planet proceeded to tell me that one (as he pointed to my pregnant belly) will be autistic too. I nearly lost it, but the tiger mom in me came out and I knew I would do whatever it took to make sure my second son would not be autistic. It was this fire that also drove me to pull out all the stops and work even harder to find the resources that would help Jake make the strides that he did. 

Those "early intervention" days were a challenge. All the trips to different doctors, therapists and alternative healers...it was quite exhausting. It seemed like we tried almost every type of so-called cure, from light therapy, different diets, chelation, hyperbaric chambers, vitamin infusions, and yes, medicines. All in all, we learned that the speech, behaviorial ABA and some occupational therapy were the best things to help Jake. Sure, cutting out certain foods that gave him some excessive stimming behaviors helped, but the same could be said for "typical" children when you remove sugar from their diet. Overall, he came a long way after the major regression he took between year one and year two.

At around 3-4 years old Jakes speech was coming around and he was even potty trained by 4 year old (having a baby brother potty training at the same time was a nice incentive...sibling rivalry I guess). We also had to work a lot on his motor skills, so OT became a helpful tool during the pre-k years. The sensory input needs were fulfilled more during with OT. We also had not only utilized some early intervention programs that were provided by the State, we also paid privately (hello second and third mortgages). We also would pay for a shadow to go with Jake to a local pre-k school. Finding the right school was always an adventure for us. While the learning and social skill gap between Jake and his classmates was less noticeable in pre-k, the parents sure gave me the stink eye (don't you love ignorant people). But the schooling issues had only begun during those early years.

By the time we were in the public school system in kindergarten through 5th grade, Jake had been through 5 schools. What fun...we all know how much our kids with autism love change...

Jake would go on to change many schools as we tried to find the most effective environment conducive to his learning. We went through so many trials and tribulations with schools, teachers, and eventually the school district knew us by first name basis. We fought hard to have all his accommodations in school and ultimately acknowledged that the best place to advocate and demand services was with the public school system. Jake is currently graduating and soon to transition into the next chapter of life. He will not attend college but rather continue with the district's transitional academies and programs for life and work skills training.

TO BE CONTINUED....