Around 2 years old, Nathaniel started showing some signs of Autism. He stopped making eye contact and started staring off into space. He also started screaming and banging his head on the walls and his bed at night. Our doctor at the time told us “He’s autistic this is just put him in a center”. We were determined that Nate would be taken much better care of in our home. We frantically started researching autism and possible ways that we could help Nathaniel. We went through many possible solutions before discovering an enzyme supplement routine along with some dietary restrictions that lead to the head banging and screaming being stopped. He’ll still bang his head on the door once in a while, but only because he knows that we’ll come to his door right away and open it. It seems to be less of an issue of discomfort.
After many months of trial and error to find the right combination or enzymes and other supplements we finally rested on a particular regimen. We then started researching on how best to get Nate educated. We landed on a program where we were given a curriculum that was designed specifically for children with Autism. (Some people wonder if Nate has the “genius” type of autism, commonly know as Asperger’s disorder. He does not. Nathaniel is a bit further on the bell curve where his vocabulary and fine motor skills are interrupted.) Rachel has been working with Nate through this curriculum for the past 2 years and we have seen some improvements. This particular program strictly focuses on prompt/response/reward style education. Often leading to “robot-like” behavior from autistic children. Needless to say his social and educational improvements were limited with style of teaching.
Recently, we discovered the Son Rise program. The Son Rise program is a therapy strategy that focuses on human interaction as opposed to the ABCs and 123s. This program focuses on the using the child’s motivation for helping them to learn and develop socially. Many children have been cured of autism. That’s right, cured. That is why we are going in this direction.
We have gathered an amazing team of volunteers and trained them to implement this program. You can learn more about it in Our Strategy. We have also learned further about Nathaniel’s digestive system and have begun the SCD, or specific carbohydrate, diet. We are seeing more and more improvements with this new diet and the Son Rise program. We are really excited to see what the next few years have in store for our Nate!
