Angela

My original background was biochemistry PHD from University of Toronto who specialize in vaccine development and was working for world renowned pharmaceutical company. Now, me and my husband both obtained BCBA from China.

I noticed my son had certain development delays at age 2-3 such as communication and overall maturity. At the time the biggest concern was his behavoir issue espcially meltdowns which started to last more than 30-40 mins.

2 day cares recommended early intervention and our pediatrician suspected he may be in both ASD/ADHD spectrum.

My son Ray was officially diagnosed with autism level 2 at age 3 by Pivotal Kids Doctor and also by Dr. Merchant from Maple Kidz at age 4 (ASD Level 2). In addition, He was suspected to have ADHD because of short attention span and behavior issue. By definition: ASD is a mental disorder, not an illness which can never be cured. Level 2 meaning he requires substantial support, let alone enjoy the things normal kids can do.

The darkest day was when he enter Junior Kindergarten at Crosby public school, teacher would not allow him to stay more than 2 hours and 55 mins because of his behavior.

Me and my husband can not predict the future and only ways is to spend 100% effort on studying ASD/ADHD intervention. In the process, we hit certain obstacle that how we define what's "normal", what's a "good" behavior? He still a 3 year old kid, do we enforce these rigid/robotic ABA to correct every "bad" behavior? We still want him to be a kid. Only way to learn is to get an in-depth understanding of NT kids, then we can see his gap in a mainstream group setting. We started to volunteer to different summer, winter, PA day, after school camps to learn how kids behave from age 2-8.

We also worked with a biggest ASD centre from China and developed a program to enhance brain and overall development. We understand once child's cognitive goes up and everything goes up. Once he can successfully adapt to mainstream school, then he will be able to self learning.

After 4 month intervention he made major progress, most of the ASD symptom such as: behavior, emotional control, attention span, fine motor, speech, social all gone up. School have removed him from IEP. Six month later, in lot areas he surpass NT kid's milestone. Now he's 5 and half, in grade 1, he does amazing in school, very social and have lot friends. Plus he volunteer to be a leader in many activities. He also excel in sports, academics. He is usually the leader in his sports camp. Now, when he goes to the park, he would pick up new friends and some of their parents would ask our contact to setup play dates. In the process, we found certain talent that he has which he is years ahead of his peers.