Posted by Anne
I’d like to tell you about our daughter Lissy. Maybe it may offer you hope. Lissy was diagnosed at three years six months as severely autistic, with severe learning disabilities, profound speach and language difficulties and a severe and complex sensory disorder affecting all seven sensory systems, anorexic with severely disturbed sleep patterns and hyperactivity. At that time, we were perhaps the only ones who believed in her potential to be a well functioning child. Lissy is now rising seven. she is a dearly loved child and we are immensely proud of her. Lissy’s diagnoses is now simply high functioning autism, she is in some academic areas two years above her peers. she attends mainstream school and is doing really well. We used a wide range of interventions because her difficulties were so complex that no single approach would have been enough. Because we live in the U.k we were able to get a lot of health care for free and what wasn’t available we brought in. We used discrete trial methodology, Greenspan ‘floor time’, on advice from her nutritionist we excluded gluten, all dairy, all additives etc and use a lot of supplements including those for increasing the health of the bowels. we continue to use Carol Grey social stories, we continue to use occupational therapy and physiotherapy techniques to develop proprioception – however, Lissy just sees it as ball games and ‘ballet’ and just great fun. We used art therapy and music therapy – she’s now great at art and music. We also attend The British Institute of Brain Injured children, which whilst it is not available on the NHS is fantastic and a source of up to date knowledge and expertise. I won’t pretend that it’s been easy, we still believe we have a way to go before lissy’s reached her full potential but she’s on the road to health and we are so very, very glad that we are traveling with her.