Patrick and Ben Hindmarsh arent twins, but when you see them interact, its difficult to tell the lanky teenage brothers apart. You wouldnt guess one was diagnosed with classic autism more than a decade ago.
Their mother, Dr. Wendy Edwards, a former chief resident at Torontos Hospital for Sick Children and now a pediatrician, remembers the moment she realized her youngest son Patrick was autistic: At three years old, he didnt make eye contact and sometimes flapped his hands in the air, but when he rapidly echoed the language in a computer game (a repetitive autism behaviour called scripting), she knew.
Globe and Mail Update Aug. 03 2014, 12:00 PM EDT
It was like I got punched in the gut. Im lying on the couch and I realize, This is autism, this is autism. We have to do something about it, says Edwards, who lives in Chatham, Ont., with husband Keith Hindmarsh and their sons.
We couldnt get his attention. He would run around and we would call his name and call his name Patrick, Patrick and he just wouldnt respond, Hindmarsh recalls.
Now 14, with good grades and set to start high school, Patrick is practically unidentifiable as the withdrawn non-verbal toddler who ignored his brother, slipped out of his fathers hugs and never really looked at his mothers face.
His parents credit the change to an autism treatment called the Son-Rise Program, which the family started soon after Patricks diagnosis.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control pegs the number of children with autism at one in 68, and climbing. Although experts emphasize the importance of starting treatment as early as possible, waiting lists for the mainstream method of treatment behavioural therapy are as long as four years in some provinces. Go the private route, and families can face a cost of about $60,000 a year of treatment.
Some families are turning to alternative approaches and, in particular, to Son-Rise, a 30-year-old therapy devised by an American couple for their severely autistic son, which is carefully detailed in a new book by that now-adult son, Raun Kaufman. Believers such as the Edwards-Hindmarsh family and Laurie Mawlam, executive director of the Autism Canada Foundation have seen their uncommunicative and isolated children emerge as dynamic members of their family and community. Many go so far as to use the R word: recovery.
I can actually talk to people now, I can actually interact with my parents and friends, whereas back then I was just sort of wandering, Patrick says.
See more here:
Facing down autism: The unconventional (and somewhat controversial) therapy thats led to recovery