A Change of Focus

Over the last four years of homeschooling, I have struggled to fight against the urge to teach as the schools do. For one thing it is the only method I’ve ever known and for another that was the way I was educated for 16 years. It is hard to break established habits. But as I look at mainstream education models more closely I see they are short-sighted — they only demand an accumulation of knowledge. Knowledge must involve the heart or else it “puffs up”. We train the mind only to prick the heart and point us to God. Instead of filling up more worksheets we converse more and we reflect and record our learning into our notebooks. We might still use the same books and learn the same subjects, but now they are just tools for discipleship rather than something we have to finish at year end. Although we test our children in their knowledge of math, grammar and spelling, we also test their character:

1. Do they finish what they start?

2. Do they persevere through a tough problem or give up?

3. When they are assigned work, do they obey without challenge, without delay, and without excuse?

4. Do they do their work orderly and with their best writing? (thereby showing good stewardship)

I also have to work on my attitude towards my children. Many times a day, my son exhibits many behaviors and most of them are rooted in selfishness (which is a sin issue) and rigidity (which stems from his autism). Most of the time I am patient but there are days where I get easily annoyed by his repetitive questions, rebellious attitude, and acting unkind towards his sister. My attitude is many times only inward and only results in frustration and anger. That anger then leads to escalation of his behaviors which results in missed opportunities for heart training.

So now, through God’s grace, I’m working on looking at each infraction as an opportunity for teaching and self-control. Though I may be tired, I will speak calmly and try to teach him a more godly behavior if only by example. I am finding that this is the best way to get through to his heart. It also answers one of the questions in my prayer; How do you teach an autistic child wisdom? One soft spoken word at a time through the work of the Holy Spirit.

A New Year

Whenever I face another year, I like to look back and remember God’s many blessings and answered prayers of the prior year. I keep a journal where I write down my prayers, trials, praises and encouragement from Scripture. I find that if I don’t write anything down, (especially my prayers) I tend to forget what God has done for me, my family, parents and friends. When I forget, I fail to thank Him.

I also use these notes to review when I am discouraged dealing with my own character and of the character of our children. When I review His providential care, I am reminded how blessed we are. One of the many blessings that I am so thankful for is finally having a home church. For many years we didn’t have a church to which we felt a sense of belonging. We were spiritually dried up and not experienceing the love and grace of God through fellowship. But now, we are spurred on to serve others, to seek wisdom and to mortify sin as we persevere daily to reflect His image to those we love and to those God sends our way to minister to.

Neurodevelopmental Therapy

About three years ago I was led to NDT by Dennis Gunderson of Grace and Truth books. I was in the trivium pursuit e-loop asking about a phonics program for children with autism. He then recommended a book “Too Wise To Be Mistaken, Too Good To Be Unkind” by Cathy Steere. It was the first book I read on autism written from a Christian perspective. I was touched by her story as it mimicked ours except they had the correct view of God and man as they trained their son with autism. We didn’t pursue it further until a year later when a neurodevelopment therapist came to the Valley Home Educator’s Conference in Modesto.

The therapy we are currently doing is simple but it’s assumptions are founded on neurobiology. It uses brain plasticity to address sensory issues and therefore improve function through frequency, intensity and duration. It is very similar to physical training of athletes, except instead of muscle it works on neurons and neuropathways. It is an approach to remediation that addresses the root causes of the bizarre behavior our son exhibits. It also explains that these odd behaviors are symptoms of a disorganized brain. Their clients range from those in the autism spectrum, down sydrome to dyslexia and ADD.

When we met our current NDT therapist she did a developmental profile that consisted of 6 main areas: Gross Motor, Expressive Language, Fine Motor, Visual, Auditory and Tactility. Each area is scored based on where the child falls in level of development which goes from Level 1(babies) to Level 9(Adult). These exercises done with sufficient consistency give the brain effective stimulation it needs to move the child to the next level of development.

For many years, a lot of resources were spent on his education and various therapies. But NDT puts them all together into one cohesive program that includes, but is not limited to, speech therapy, sensory integration, vision therapy, biochemistry, and sound therapy.

The Journey Part 4

Our homeschooling journey began in 2001, when I started reading books on the subject. The books that helped me the most were A Mom Just Like You by Vicki Farris, The WholeHearted Child by Sally Clarkson, Praise Her in the Gates by Nancy Wilson , and Lifestyle of Learning by Marilyn Howshall. With my husband’s blessing, we started homeschooling our daughter in 2003 when she was in 1st grade. I enjoyed that one year with her and she enjoyed it too as she had her Mom one on one.

During that year, Scotty was still enrolled in a special day class (Learning Handicapped) as a 6th grader. He really was just functioning as a high 1st/2nd grader. He had low frustration tolerance, self injurious behaviors and limited expressive language. Being in public school for the last 3 yrs didn’t have much effect on him socially until now. His classmates were approaching their teenage years(~11 yrs old) and were getting more vulgar. Girls were also acting different and getting interested in boys. I wasn’t sure yet whether or not I could homeschool him, but towards the end of the schoolyear, he came home and gave me the “finger”. There was another autistic child in class who shouted a curse word together with his finger in class. Because it got attention, he imitated it without knowing what it’s meaning was. After that incident we knew we had to take him home.

Taking him home was a hurdle. Hart Ransom Charter school at this time had never had an autistic child this far behind and who needed so many services. They had one autistic child prior but he had Asperger’s Syndrome (a very high-functioning form of Autism) and was on grade level. Of course we had to call an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meeting that involved the Hart Ransom Principal and Superintendent, the Selpa (county) director, speech therapist, Hart Ransom resource specialist, the Principal from Eisenhut Elementary, and the county autism inclusion specialist. None of them agreed to bringing Scotty to Hart Ransom and the Superintendent asked me if the child was being consulted about this decision. Another teacher also told us that we didn’t really have autism experience. I think what she meant was that neither of us have a Master’s Degree in Special Education. Quite hilarious isn’t it? Based on our experience, these were the nicer school officials. In Modesto City Schools and Sylvan Unified School District, you would have to put up a fight and maybe even require an attorney to advocate for you. After that process which took about 2 months, he was enrolled. With the support and encouragement of my husband, and friends from church, he continues to be educated at home.

Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew by Ellen Notbahm

Some days it seems the only predictable thing about it is the unpredictability. The only consistent attribute, the inconsistency. There is little argument on any level but that autism is baffling, even to those who spend their
lives around it.

The child who lives with autism may look “normal,” but his or her behavior can be perplexing and downright difficult. Today, the citadel of autism, once thought an “incurable” disorder, is cracking around the foundation.
Every day, individuals with autism show us they can overcome, compensate for, and otherwise manage many of the condition’s most challenging aspects. Equipping those around our children with a simple understanding of autism’s most basic elements has a tremendous effect on the children’s journey towards productive, independent adulthood. Autism is an extremely complex disorder, but we can distill it to three critical components: sensory processing difficulties, speech/language delays and impairments, and whole child/social interaction issues.

Here are 10 things every child with autism wishes you knew.

1. I am a child with autism. I am not “autistic.” My autism is one aspect of my total character. It does not define me as a person. Are you a person with thoughts, feelings and many talents, or are you just fat (overweight), myopic (wear glasses) or klutzy (uncoordinated, not good at sports)?

2. My sensory perceptions are disordered. This means the ordinary sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches of everyday life that you may not even notice can be downright painful for me. The very environment in which I have to live often seems hostile. I may appear withdrawn or belligerent to you, but I am really just trying to defend myself. A “simple” trip to the grocery store may be hell for me. My hearing may be hyper acute. Dozens of people are talking at once. The loudspeaker booms today’s special. Muzak whines from the sound system. Cash registers beep and cough. A coffee grinder is chugging. The meat cutter screeches, babies wail, carts creak, the fluorescent lighting hums. My brain can’t filter all the input, and I’m in overload! My sense of smell may be highly sensitive. The fish at the meat counter isn’t quite fresh, the guy standing next to us hasn’t showered today, the deli is handing out sausage samples, the baby in line ahead of us has a poopy diaper, they’re mopping up pickles on Aisle 3 with ammonia. … I can’t sort it all out, I’m too nauseous. Because
I am visually oriented, this may be my first sense to become overstimulated. The fluorescent light is too bright. It makes the room pulsate and hurts my eyes. Sometimes the pulsating light bounces off everything and distorts
what I am seeing. The space seems to be constantly changing. There’s glare from windows, moving fans on the ceiling, so many bodies in constant motion, too many items for me to be able to focus – and I may compensate with tunnel vision. All this affects my vestibular sense, and now I can’t even tell where my body is in space. I may stumble, bump into things, or simply lay down to try and regroup.

3. Please remember to distinguish between won’t (I choose not to) and can’t (I’m not able to). Receptive and expressive language are both difficult for me. It isn’t that I don’t listen to instructions. It’s that I can’t understand you. When you call to me from across the room, this is what I hear: “*&^%$#@, Billy. #$%^*&^%$&*”
Instead, come speak directly to me in plain words: “Please put your book in your desk, Billy. It’s time to go to lunch.” This tells me what you want me to do and what is going to happen next. Now it’s much easier for me to comply.

4. I am a concrete thinker. I interpret language literally. It’s very confusing for me when you say, “Hold your horses, cowboy!” when what you really mean is “Please stop running.” Don’t tell me something is a “piece of cake” when there is no dessert in sight and what you really mean is, “This will be easy for you to do.” When you say, “It’s pouring cats and dogs,” I see pets coming out of a pitcher. Please just tell me, “It’s raining very hard.” Idioms, puns, nuances, double entendres and sarcasm are lost on me.

5. Be patient with my limited vocabulary. It’s hard for me to tell you what I need when I don’t know the words to describe my feelings. I may be hungry, frustrated, frightened or confused, but right now those words are
beyond my ability to express. Be alert for body language, withdrawal, agitation, or other signs that something is wrong. There’s a flip side to this: I may sound like a little professor or a movie star, rattling off words or whole scripts well beyond my developmental age. These are messages I have memorized from the world around me to compensate for my language deficits, because I know I am expected to respond when spoken to. They may come from books, television or the speech of other people. It’s called echolalia. I don’t necessarily understand
the context or the terminology I’m using, I just know it gets me off the hook for coming up with a reply.

6. Because language is so difficult for me, I am very visually oriented. Show me how to do something rather than just telling me. And please be prepared to show me many times. Lots of patient repetition helps me learn. A visual schedule is extremely helpful as I move through my day. Like your day planner, it relieves me of the stress of having to remember what comes next, makes for smooth transitions between activities, and helps me manage my time and meet your expectations.

7. Focus and build on what I can do rather than what I can’t do. Like any other human, I can’t learn in an environment where I’m constantly made to feel that I’m not good enough or that I need fixing. Trying anything new when I am almost sure to be met with criticism, however constructive, becomes something to be avoided. Look for my strengths and you’ll find them. There’s more than one right way to do most things.

8. Help me with social interactions. It may look like I don’t want to play with the other kids on the playground, but sometimes it’s just that I simply don’t know how to start a conversation or enter a play situation. If you
can encourage other children to invite me to join them at kickball or shooting baskets, I may be delighted to be included.

9. Try to identify what triggers my meltdowns. This is termed “the antecedent.” Meltdowns, blowups, tantrums or whatever you want to call them are even more horrid for me than they are for you. They occur because one or more of my senses has gone into overload. If you can figure out why my meltdowns occur, they can be prevented.

10. If you are a family member, please love me unconditionally. Banish thoughts such as, “If he would just …” and “Why can’t she … ?” You didn’t fulfill every last expectation your parents had for you, and you wouldn’t
like being constantly reminded of it. I didn’t choose to have autism. Remember that it’s happening to me, not you. Without your support, my chances of successful, self-reliant adulthood are slim. With your support and guidance, the possibilities are broader than you might think. I promise you I’m worth it.

It all comes down to three words: Patience. Patience. Patience.

Work to view my autism as a different ability rather than a disability. Look past what you may see as limitations and see the gifts autism has given me. I may not be good at eye contact or conversation, but have you noticed
I don’t lie, cheat at games, tattle on my classmates, or pass judgment on other people?

You are my foundation. Think through some of those societal rules, and if they don’t make sense for me, let them go. Be my advocate, be my friend, and we’ll see just how far I can go.

I probably won’t be the next Michael Jordan, but with my attention to fine detail and capacity for extraordinary focus, I might be the next Einstein. Or Mozart. Or Van Gogh. They had autism too.
Freelance writer and consultant Ellen Notbohm is a columnist for Autism/Asperger’s Digest and co-author of 1001 Great Ideas for Teaching and Raising Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders (Future Horizons).
She favors “common sense” approaches to raising her sons with autism and AD/HD. She lives in Oregon.

Looking back at the Hand of God

Times flies. I can’t believe that this is our fourth year of home education. The fears are now gone as God has provided all that we needed–especially people who encouraged me. Every year, God held my hand, as I always needed some assurance. Our family has been through a lot of changes. With homeschooling, came a deeper dependence on God, following Him when we didn’t know where we were going and what the results would be. I have always been a planner, but I lacked faith at times because I wanted to see the end result- – the destination of my journey and the product of my labors. But I know it doesn’t happen that way. God is sovereign and faithful.

God poured many blessings to our small family in the last four years. Through homeschooling, I met many believers. Their character was different from the churchgoers I knew. They acted differently, and most of all, their children acted differently. They were a strong witness to me. Then God led me to the field of neurodevelopment run by a very small group of Christian therapists who did not limit children according to their labels. This therapy combined with metabolic support through Chembalance helped Scotty tremendously in the last 2 years we homeschooled him. Also, God had worked in our hearts to obey Him in the area of child training. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, we used psychology more than the Word of God in this area. This was significant and I praised God for His hand in this. Lastly, He led us to a family integrated church in Ceres, Central Valley Evangelical Reformed Church.

In this church, our faith grew after having been stagnant for many years. We started listening to the whole counsel of God. Our faith was strengthened as we were edified by godly people who have love in their hearts. Although many come from different backgrounds, walking different paths, we are one in spirit because we have Christ as our foundation.

Once in a while I get discouraged at my own limitations and become discontent with the slow progress of the therapy with my son. But God reminds me to trust in Him not my abilities and to see beyond the tangible. As the world measures Scotty’s success solely by numbers and grade levels, we see him growing in obedience through respect for his parents and himself. His self injurious behaviors are gone, he is kinder towards his sister , and has a quieter spirit. There is still that temptation to see Scotty only through the eyes of the world and not through the eyes of God.

All these gifts came from above and we wholeheartedly praise God from whom ALL blessings flow!

(Last installment of the journey coming next)

The Journey Part 3

His stay at Walter White was an eventful one. It was a classroom filled with 6-8 autistic children ages 6-8 yrs. old and each had a corresponding one on one aide. All the time spent in this classroom was crisis management for there was a tantrum about every 10 minutes. The behavioral approach carried through from the home, and he was mainstreamed to the K class next door for one hour.

He exhibited odd behaviors there due to the noise and stress of the place. A panel of 4 people including myself were deeply involved in the planning of placing him in a Learning Disabled classroom(special day class). It was to be a “promotion” for him. The county behaviorist, autism transition person, and the teacher planned this transition to the real classroom. During this time, Scotty started showing some destructive and self-stimulatory behavior that when it was time to enroll him in Muncy, we met opposition from the Principal due to the nature of his behaviors. Believe it or not, one of the behaviors he showed was labelled sexual harassment to a female classmate as Scotty attempted to hug her while they were lying down to get the attention of the girl’s aide whom Scotty took a liking to. Now, at this point Scotty’s mental age was more of a 5 yr. old. It took a meeting for us to even determine this for the school personnel saw it as harassment. An emergency IEP meeting was called and there were about 10 people there (from teacher to County Spec. Ed. Director). They were all there. The teacher detailed his many behaviors to all these strangers. This angered us. They refused to accept Scotty at that school so VMRC appointed us a Spec. Ed. Attorney to fight for his behalf. Stress permeated all who were involved and most of the people that were on Scotty’s side were “let go” by the Spec. Ed. Director.
For four years his school was the LH(Learning Handicapped) classroom. In these classrooms there were structure and behavioral control. There were usually 2 Behaviorists who wrote behavior plans. The summer vacations that followed each of these years were so difficult that I dreaded it because I became fearful of him. His meltdowns would include kicking and scratching me, throwing, yelling and banging his head on the floor, furniture, and concrete. We were taught how to do basket holds for his protection. During vacation, every hour of the day had to be planned otherwise these behaviors would be more frequent. My daughter Angela was already 2-3 yrs old and witnessed most of these meltdowns. She usually hid under our dining table. With God’s protection, she has no memory of it. All she knew was that her brother is very good at building with legos, catching insects, and that he is funny.
During the course of these four years the meltdowns and headbanging decreased from once a day to twice a month. We were very grateful. During this time, we were able to take him to Sunday School at our previous church. Scotty was able to function there for 1 hour. It was nice that for the first time, we were able to sit at a church, go to a restaurant and finish a meal without a meltdown. Once in a while, something would bother him like the sun glaring on the windows in the restaurant.

As his behaviors improved, I started thinking of homeschooling. I learned about it through a Mom who homeschooled a high functioning autistic boy. It was an easy decision to homeschool my daughter so we started her first 3 yrs ago while she was in 1st grade. It took me another year and a lot of prayer to get the courage to homeschool Scotty.

Rooted in Him

I have been thinking of roots lately as we study plants. I found a wonderful book on nature by Worthington Hooker. There he describes that as a seed sprouts, the stalk goes upwards and the root goes down because the food of the plant comes from the soil. From the main root come many fibers that act like little “mouths” to soak up moisture and nourishment. When we transport a plant, we break many of these tiny mouths and the plant wilts. I saw these as we repositioned some of our bushes last year. The lillies just drooped as though it was dying.

As trials assail us, we are like these plants if we are not rooted in His Word. I remember how it felt like to be that lily. Wilted. One of the books that gave me encouragement when I was going back to church was Jeremiah 29:11 and afterwards Jeremiah 17:7-8:

“Blessed in the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.”

God’s promises are always true. As a tree, we can draw abundant sap from Him. He is an infinite source of strength, wisdom and love. When heat comes, our leaves will always be green because our hope is in Him not in the world. Our nourishment comes from his living water, not the world’s honey. It is sweet at first, but it gives no nourishment or satisfaction.

I realized that when God says He will comfort us, it doesn’t mean creature comfort and prosperity but fruitfulness in holiness and good works. The leaves, the fruit – they are beautiful to others and glorifying to God.

The Journey Part 2

For the next two months I researched what services were needed, what to file, who to call. The next step was for Scotty to go through a 40 hour a week intensive behavioral training at home, funded by VMRC and our school district. All the experts said that this was the most effective, and prognosis was good if we went through it. I was sent to a few parents’ homes who do this program to inquire and to make a decision whether or not we want to do this. I was told that I had to hire college students to do shifts of 2-4 hours. There would be 2 tutors per day to a total of 8 hrs a day. I had to recruit, interview and hire while the clinical psychologists assigned would train them on the discreet trial method of learning. All these in a month. Scott and I realized that we couldn’t do this unless I resigned from my job. So by February 1996 I quit my job, and started Scotty’s behavioral therapy at home. It was a job far harder than I realized. I was ill-equipped to handle it. I devoured books on autism and tried to learn as much as I could as soon as I could because time was crucial in early intervention. All of these of course were done on my own strength and without God’s counsel. It added more stress to our marriage and because this “search for a cure” had consumed me I had neglected my husband even more. Of course during this time, I was far from being the homemaker or help-meet to begin with.

At the time, we were grateful that we got this program, because it was the only treatment available for autism at the time and something that parents had to fight for. It was a program very hard on a family because it was very intrusive. But considering the alternatives, this at least provided some hope for improvement. When you live with a child that cries all the time, cannot communicate and hurts himself often, parents get very desperate because they are usually at their wits end. The staff for this began with a Clinical Director, who supervised a Senior Tutor (usually one getting their Masters), who then supervised the Tutors, which was his direct teacher/trainer. Quite a heirarchy for one child isn’t it? Data collection was strictly adhered to as it was also part of a research program. Because it was intensive behavior training, most of the time it seemed like the Clinical Director was running your household. She told us when to give snacks, how to apply consequences to every behavior he exhibited to what to say to him. I don’t remember everything but I remember that everyday in the course of the 8 hours Scotty was in the “learning room” he would have a 30-40 minute tantrum, filled with banging sounds, screams, loud crying and that I was to ignore it. They called it “extinction”.
Three weeks had passed and he uttered all the sounds of the alphabet by command and we were very happy that he was able to say Mom. More time had passed and he was able to follow a command such as come here, sit down and do this. Things continued to improve that by 1 year into the program he was saying simple sentences, sort, go to the bathroom. We celebrated all the milestones most especially the potty training part. We had compliance but self-injurious behaviors continued for many years. Day in and day out tutors would come in at precisely 8am, start therapy, change shifts at noon and another one would come until 4pm. Although I wasn’t really the one working directly with him, it was emotionally draining and drying to the soul.

I did try to visit a church and tried to worship there. All I remembered was I would cry at every hymn. Nobody greeted me but I didn’t care because it was a respite to just sit there and listen to music. I did try to talk to the Pastor and ask for help, but he couldn’t help me. There was not even an offer of prayer. So then I went to a Psychiatrist for help, but he didn’t help either(surprise). He just said I was having an adjustment problem(as he wrote in his file) and that he could prescribe medication.

There was a local support group at the time. They helped a little in that I wasn’t alone, and I got some advice about services and the school districts. After a couple of years I stopped going because the information offered there was just overwhelming and I would come home fired up and exhausted.

From the time Scotty was 3 1/2 until he was 7 years old, this was his life. Then it was time to send him to school. We tried a few private Christian schools but he would last there only 3-5 months. We didn’t have any other option but to send him to an autism classroom at Walter White (Ceres) with a promise of preparing him for a learning disabled class at Muncy Elementary in Modesto.

The Journey Part 1

Our journey with autism began after his second birthday. My mother in law had noticed that he didn’t seem to hear. He started some odd behaviors such as rocking back and forth, 2 hour tantrums, banging his head and playing with toys over and over. We tried to take him to an audiologist at this time, but he went into some blood curling screams that we gave up on testing him. We didn’t have another opportunity to have one until he’s almost three and by this time his behaviors were getting worse.

Before his third birthday, he went through what they called a BEAR test where the child is sedated and a hearing test is done through brain waves. At this time, he was diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss that’s about moderate to severe in range especially in the high frequencies. Immediately we had a meeting with the school district and written up an IFSP(not an IEP because he’s not school age). An IEP is an individualized education plan written by a “team” which includes the parent, the teacher, the principal, resource specialist, county administrator and more depending on what your child has. Your child now becomes a ward of the State.

He got his first hearing aids then and went to Sam Vaughn elementary to attend the hard of hearing pre-school class. All this time I was working as an accountant for Valley Fresh Foods and when he’s not in school, he was in day care. It was one of the most difficult time in my life. His hearing loss devastated me. My expectations were shattered. Life became even more hectic. You would think I’d quit my job at this time, but I continued through it to make ends meet. Scott at this time worked in Sunnyvale(Lockheed) and leaves at 3:30 every morning. This put an added strain to our marriage. We also didn’t have a church at all.

Sam Vaughn was his first of many failed school experiences. It was hard to see him go to such a big school. He was barely 3 feet tall, wore a backpack to the classroom, had a lost look all the time and can communicate at about a 1 yr old level. Scotty only attended Sam Vaughn for a semester when the teacher told me that there is something else wrong with him. He could not learn or communicate even though others who have a more severe hearing loss were able to either orally or through sign language. Here is where I stumbled on a book called “Let Me Hear Your Voice” by Catherine Maurice. It is my first book on autism that a speech pathologist had recommended. I read it anyway even though I was saying to myself-no it can’t be. Coleen Sparkman, owner of Speech Path then told me to go to Valley Mountain Regional Center to see if Scotty can get diagnosed. She said he really didn’t show the classic symptoms because he was a sociable little boy. After much paper work we were referred there by VMRC to UCSF to see Bryna Siegel.

I still remember the day. It was Dec. 5, 1995, a cool sunny day in San Francisco. I was so nervous but hopeful. We had to be there by 9am, so we didn’t know how Scotty would do. For three hours Scott and I were interviewed. Scotty was observed, tested by a panel of three people. Ms. Siegel was very clinical and at the end of the three hours delivered to us in her matter of fact tone: “He has autism but no mental retardation”. It took a while to digest what she just said. We were both numb. We were all exhausted and had a quiet drive home to Modesto. When we learned he has a severe hearing loss, it broke my heart, but it crashed to pieces after finding out he is autistic. My heart remained in pieces for many years, trying to find other ways apart from God to mend it. I went into a mild depression after this.

In Part 2 the journey continues….