About Us - Consulting, Products and Information about Autism

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Almost 3 years ago, a beautiful 2-year old boy was diagnosed with autism and severe mental retardation. Now he is almost completely recovered, and we - his parents and the dedicated team of professionals who made his recovery possible - have decided to reach out to help other children with seemingly predetermined fates.

In the beginning, our son was almost completely nonverbal, very rigid and had constant temper tantrums (including banging his head on the floor, and inconsolable crying outbursts) - just to name a few of the seemingly insurmountable challenges he faced. His standard test scores placed him in the bottom 1-2% across multiple areas and we were told his future was very bleak, with little chance for a college education or a life outside of our home.

Determined not to accept this fate for him, we immersed ourselves in the literature (reading all of the recommended books we could get our hands on), and sought the advice of every professional we could find. The general consensus of all of these sources was that our son needed 2 things right away: 1) to begin an intensive Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy program, and 2) biomedical interventions to address the underlying biochemical and medical issues associated with autism spectrum disorders.

We focused first on ABA. The thought of implementing a 30-40 hour per week ABA program in our home was very scary. Hiring and scheduling therapists, searching for hard to find program materials, and of course the financial toll it would take on our family were just a few of our concerns. We knew little about what made a good ABA program work, and so we set about researching available companies in our area to help us. After finding a consultant we liked, we moved ahead with training, hiring a therapist and getting materials to get started.

Amazingly, our son made immediate and measurable progress within his first week of ABA! We knew we were on the right track – especially since our therapist was inexperienced and we were very new to the concepts of ABA ourselves. By the time we got his program ramped up to full-time (about 2 months), he had become a completely different boy. He was engaged, happy and his language skills were improving every day. He began to communicate his needs, completely stopped his behavioral outbursts, and began to develop age-appropriate play skills. The turnaround was remarkable.

Once his ABA program was well underway, we then turned our focus to the biomedical aspect of his condition, working with a DAN! doctor to develop a protocol of supplements that also produced dramatic improvements. Through trial and error, we were able to discover a number of effective treatments that showed nearly instantaneous results. With all pistons firing, our son's progress has continued at an exponential rate to this day, and he is very close to full recovery - only two years later.

We have faced a lot of stress along the way - too much. The financial toll autism recovery takes on a family alone is astounding. In nearly all states, insurance companies pay for little to none of the needed treatments, and a top notch ABA program alone can cost $40,000 - $50,000 a year. The job of locating suitable and affordable materials with which to run the program is endless and often impossible as well. Because of these and too many more road blocks faced by parents of children with autism, we decided to try to do our part to make a difference.

So this is how Pieces of the Puzzle was born. It is our sincere hope that we can help other families find quality services, products, and information at a reasonable cost. This is what we are about. We want other parents to experience the profound joy we have found at watching our son emerge.

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