Getting Started on the Autism Recovery Journey

I started with Karyn Seroussi's book, Unraveling the Mystery of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder: A Mother's Story of Research and Recovery.

I cannot rave enough about this book. God used it to start our journey of recovery. He used it to energize me for the hardest and most arduous journey of my life. After reading this book, it became very, very clear to my spirit that God was leading me down a path of recovering our daughter completely. Somehow, amidst my own severe health issues at the time, He gave me the strength to see our daughter through this and meet her at the other side of it.

Karyn discusses her journey with her son. She uses lots of scientific evidence to explain the potential healing effects of dietary intervention in the lives of children on the autism spectrum. I have met more families with autistic children than I can count, and I know from that experience that not all AS children respond positively to dietary intervention. However, I have also seen dietary intervention be nothing short of miraculous. It was most of the puzzle for our daughter, and I've seen it have huge impact on other AS children as well.

Upon completing that book, I then found a website that sold not only a 3 ring binder detailing how to implement the diet, but they also had already done the research on many, many brands that were gluten and casein free, and it was not expensive. That information can be found at www.gfcfdiet.com.

We also researched the Autism Research Institute. At one time I did have the pleasure of speaking briefly with Dr. Rimland. I ordered the DAN protocol. It was weighted with very heavy science, but I highly recommend it! ARI has truly been a cornerstone for research in autism.

We also had our daughter do Berard Auditory Integration Training. To prepare our daughter, her OT started her with Somonas. All of this was nothing short of miraculous in healing her auditory processing issues!

There were additional steps we took, and I will go into more detail in the future. Of course, speech therapy was a must, among other things.

Every mom I have known of an AS child has worked the hours of 4 full time jobs. All I can say is that our hard work paid off, and we are very, very blessed to have seen complete healing.

I hope that our story encourages other families and provides ideas and resources in your journey. We found that not every therapy was necessary for our child but that every therapy was worth our time and energy to research, pray about, and with discernment attempt certain ones. That is not to say that some therapies are better than others. It is to say that what worked for our daughter may or may not work for another AS child and that it is worth it to gain as much knowledge as possible about every therapy that is available.

More tomorrow on the speech therapy and ABA we implemented at home.