Brady's Family
Brady
Brady recently turned 4.
What a long way we have came since he was
diagnosed with autism at age 2 1/2. Brady was
born full-term, no
complications. He hit all of his milestones at the end of the typical
age - for instance he sat up at 8
months, crawled at 11 months and
walked at 15 months. He was a very happy and easygoing baby - excellent
eye
contact and high tolerance for long activity (i.e. reading book,
watching a play). He knew his alphabet and numbers before
2. We noticed
he wasn't putting two words together at age 2, but has extensive
vocabulary (one word). After he turned 2 he began to stop signing (we
remembered very few words the entire summer), and by 2 1/2 he began
to self-stimulate. He
would walk back and forth near the TV. Upon his
diagnosis, we did INTENSIVE research, mainly on the Internet and
decided to put him on
Gluten Free/Casein free diet. After a year, we stopped, but recently
put him back on Casein free
diet as his results showed he is not
digesting casein properly.
He is currently attending inclusive program at public
school in the
morning (forgot to mention Brady is hearing/CODA), and receive 1:1 ABA
therapy 2 hours daily in the
afternoon. We are currently
exploring chelation. Brady has begun to pick up language and is
labeling (back to when
he was nearly 2). His self-stimulation continues
to be a problem, but has reduced
considerably - we have our ups and
downs, but would never trade
anything for Brady's wonderful personality and love for his family.