Family Stories
The Erbter Family
"You're just a first time mom and don't know anything about new babies. All babies spit up." "I can't imagine he'll ever be able to work anywhere, let alone a workshop setting." "You can't tell me you think he understands anything that's being said around him." These were phrases we had grown used to hearing from the professionals in our lives. The first one came from our pediatrician in response to our newborn son, Emory, losing 2 lbs after birth and not regaining it very well. He would sleep for two hours at a time and wake up to projectile vomit everything about 3 feet in front of him. He also didn't suckle well and had horrible "colic". The second comment came from a school psychologist at a special needs school when Emory was just 7 years old. The last comment really disturbed us. It was said from our home school's vice principal in our previous school district, even though Emory was in a self-contained classroom.
Our story is unique in that we found Horizons much later than most families — Emory was 14 years old. We had just moved to Caledonia, MI after 3 years of Emory not fitting into a special needs program at our previous school. He regressed horribly at the school who said that he didn't really understand things around him. We were tired, weary but excited to be at a school district that was happy and willing to work with Emory. They offered to have him evaluated by the school’s special education team to determine proper services for him. When we received a phone call to schedule an appointment to hear the results of the test, we were skeptical. Like many kids on the autism spectrum, Emory had been hard to test in the past. Sometimes he'd be very cooperative if it was something he was interested in or he was have an exceptionally good day. More often than not, he would be overly stimulated by a new person, new surroundings or unfamiliar and difficult tasks. We knew he could do a lot of things but his test scores were erratic as a combination of lack of participation didn't match what WE, as the PARENTS, filled out on the paper.
We received a thorough, written evaluation that was spot on by Nicole Beurkens and Erin Roon, who at that time were school personnel and participated in Emory’s evaluation. We were impressed. They had managed to obtain a level of detail about Emory that most "professionals" could not. Their recommendation was that although Emory could not officially be labeled autistic, at least in relation to the DSM-IV diagnosis, he would benefit from similar types of services. His ability to pretend play and be social without prompting over-rode the more obvious autistic behaviors such as hand-flapping, severe self-injurious behavior, lack of speech, joy in losing himself for awhile filtering sand through his fingers over his head or stimming on the floor. Emory was 14 years old and we had gone through all the "right steps" of early education beginning when he was 1 year old. In a few days, Nicole and Erin had extracted a knowledgeable set of observations despite not spending the decade-and-so that we had with him. We asked about outside services at that time since Nicole had started her own private practice and scheduled a meeting to learn more and became a member of the Horizons family.
That was two years ago. The work we have done with Horizons since has been slow and steady. But it has made the most sense than all the years of OT, Speech, PT and sensory diets. We'd finally found a place that could put all the pieces together as well as make sense with normal childhood development. Rather than tell us that "Emory was so different", we learned how to work with him in filling in key developmental steps so he could progress the way our bodies are designed to progress. To be honest, we were concerned that "doing RDI®" would take up too much time or be overwhelming at home with our three other kids. But instead, it was something we do throughout the day while we were having fun. Emory's two brothers and sister do it with him too. Our entire family has seen how the little changes have made a BIG difference in Emory's processing skills. He has gained self-confidence, independence, ability and acceptance (rather than tolerance).
We've become accustomed to hearing new phrases now such as from the students in the district, "I know Emory from school. He is so awesome". Or other parents, "I just met Emory today at my child's school. He is so sweet." Or our church classroom, "Emory loved going on the outing, or meeting a new person, or helping out in the office today." Our favorite? "We love having Emory in our classroom. He is so funny (or helpful or engaged)." Our work with Horizons has been a very big part of that success!
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