My brother was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. I was 13 at the time. My parents started researching possible therapies but with 8 other kids in the family we simply didnt have the 1000's neccessary for a full, in home ABA program. And of course the schools supply nothing close to it. Our church started paying for us to get him a program and we hired and trained college kids. Out of about 120 people we hired maybe 8-10 people who actually stuck with it and really worked. We did the program in our home, under the supervision of C.A.R.D. in Springfield, VA. When we didnt have enough theripists me and my sisters would work with my brother. He progressed very fast in the program, learning words and appropiate play skills. With 5 brothers around there was plenty of socialization oppurtunities. At the age of about 6 we could no longer scrape together the money, mostly from donations and grants, to keep him in the therapy. My sisters and I took over and basically ran a program for him. We had been initially trained in the ABA therapy but had no experience with setting up programs. I tryed to mostly concentrate on his writing and learning to read. He had alot of language although mostly receptive and his play skills were excellent. I knew he could learn how to read rather quickly because he knew all the letters, their sounds and was fascinated with them. This became too difficult to continue as well and my parents eventually decided we had no choice but to put him in school as my sisters and I were still in school ourselves. The school system barely met a single one of our very low expectations. The teachers knew nothing about autism or how to deal with the kids. They didnt make the kids do anything worthwhile unless you considder stimming in front of a televion beneficial to an autistic child. My brother was the only verbal one in his classroom of 8, the only one with appropiate play skills, the only one who could voice his needs. I worked in the classroom as a volunteer and hated what I saw. I spent time with the other kids, one in particular who the teachers said was non verbal. His school work consisted of doing a puzzle each day while being hand over hand prompted to do it. I would spend alot of time playing with him (since most of the classroom time was down time) and on many occasions got him to say several words. He could very well have learned to talk and been soo much better. Anyway my brother deteriorated greatly in that school to the point where he lost most of his language and started having huge behavior problems. We took him out and worked wiht him at home again. My parents looked into every avaiable option including moving to NY, NJ or CA where they have autism schools. There simply is nothing in Northern VA unless you have lots of money and time and even then its limited. We hired an advocate and started trying to get the school system to give my brother some ABA or speech therapy at least. To make an already long story short, we ended up with a slightly better situation then the first although still nothing close to what he needs. He has some language back but his behaviors have increased. I am now 18 and have decided that I will become whatever I have to in college so that I can change the school system here. I have a theripist job, I run an ABA program for an autism family. I just graduated high school and will probably take on more theripist jobs to make enough money to go to college. I would like to talk to any parents interested in talking. I have read alot about autism and treatments and methods and worked with several kids. Sorry this is so long.
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