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Henry was diagnosed low to mid range on the Autistic Spectrum on his 2nd birthday. At the first glance, he is a very happy, easy child and appears to have no issues at all. However, we started noticing symptoms when he was about 10 months old. He flapped his hands and feet a lot, was a late developer in crawling and walking and was verbal but had virtually no words. He had a lot of repetitive behavior, lacked interaction with others, and was obsessed with spinning toys, objects, lights and other things of that nature.
We put Henry in a special needs program in addition to his mainstream playgroup at school and immediately started speech therapy, as well as the occupational therapy he was already receiving. We also tried various things such as Therapeutic listening. And yet we felt that a few hours of therapy were not enough to get him ready by the time he reached school age. We were concerned that the gap between him and his peers would only get wider if we couldn’t find something more intensive.
Just before Henry turned 3, we decided to put him in a more intensive program. Although he had come a long way since his first diagnosis, we felt, along with his speech therapist, that he could benefit hugely by something more intensive.
After doing extensive research, we decided that Autism Partnership offers exactly what we were looking for. Since then, we haven’t looked back. Henry immediately enrolled into the program and has improved way beyond our expectations, after only 6 weeks of intensive therapy. Although it was an expensive option, this has been, by far, the only thing we have done that showed dramatic changes in Henry’s behavior.
After only 6 weeks, Henry is interacting with his family, other children, his teachers, his therapists and other adults. Although he has a long way to go with his speech, his old speech therapist was so impressed with how well he is doing at AP and believes he’s getting everything he needs there. Henry is still attending the same pre-school and his teachers have also noticed the dramatic changes. Anybody who knew Henry prior to our starting at AP has commented on the remarkable progress he has made.
Our therapists and supervisor have been great. Everyone has been very helpful with advise, are very accommodating and Henry has been happy with them. The schedule, although hard, has been easier than we thought and now we are doing 3 days at home, which means we don’t have to run from therapy to therapy all over Hong Kong. Henry also receives shadowing from his therapists in his pre-school to keep him on track.
Henry now truly becomes part of the family. He plays with us and tells us what he wants. He starts to enjoy all the fun activities we do. Although he still has a long way to go, we feel we are much closer to our goal than we did 6 weeks ago. |
My son, Tommy is 5-1/2 years old now. He joined Autism Partnership 5 months ago and he started AP school soon after. We are so happy about the progress that he has made so far. He is much more well behaved in general.
Before he joined AP, he went to a preschool for special needs kids for more than 2 years and he still had a lot of behavior issues there. He would not follow teachers’ instructions and often threw temper tantrums in the class. He couldn’t sit well during circle time. We tried to put him in a mainstream kindergarten with a shadow teacher but it didn’t work out. He couldn’t fit in even with a shadow teacher. On weekends, it was hard for us to take Tommy out with our other 2 kids. He couldn’t sit well in a restaurant. He would wander off by himself in shopping malls. Making a scene in public was not unusual for him.
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We have seen changes in him over the past few months. He started to play 'tag' with his sisters at home. My daughters were thrilled when they saw their "baby brother" play 'Candyland' (a board game) with me. They started to “boss” him around by telling him to do little tasks, like tidying up toys and getting things for them. Those are very simple instructions but they were so surprised to find out that their little brother, not only understands their words, but also “listens” to them now. He will use more language spontaneously. When we get into a restaurant, he will now find a seat for himself and wait patiently for his food. When we go out, he will stay with us most of the time. He will listen and hold hands with one of us. I can now take him to do grocery with me in a supermarket. I don’t even need to hold his hand but just ask him to follow me.
Not only is my son a much happier kid now, our whole family is happier. We really enjoy our family time now. Our daughters also like to spend time with their little brother because he is more responsive and he listens to his sisters now.
He was offered to sit in a mainstream primary school a few days ago for one morning. My husband couldn’t believe that his son went to line up with other kids with minimal prompt when the school bell rang. He waited patiently in the line and walked with other kids into the classroom when the teacher told them to.
Although he still has a lot to catch up before he can fit in a mainstream school, we believe we haven't seen his full potential yet.
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