Pietro and Shaylene have a daughter who began to regress in her first few years, exhibiting many of the typical characteristics of being on the autistic spectrum.
“She would sit in a corner and do nothing, being quite happy to sit there all day and just rock,” they explained. “She plays with her hands a lot, like she’s got her hands in the basin and is washing them, or brushes her hair with her hand. She doesn’t really play with toys or anything like that.”
Autism and its associated behaviours have been estimated to occur in 2 to 6 per 1,000 births. Autism is four times more prevalent in boys than girls, and knows no racial, ethnic, or social boundaries. There is mounting evidence that it may have environmental and chemical causes.
People with autism process and respond to information in unique ways. In some cases, aggressive, repetitive and/or self-injurious behaviour may be present. In the past autism was thought of as a psychological disorder and sometimes attributed to poor mothering. Now it is seen more as a genetically or environmentally caused developmental disorder.
The difficulties it causes are very much linked to sensory processing, and Pietro and Shaylene noticed a number of clear indicators in this area which improved when they started their child on a Sound Therapy listening program.
“When we started Sound Therapy, within literally two days we noticed some results,” explained her father. “It was huge!”
“We had Khiara on probably ten hours a day every day, and still do. The changes have been enormous. She is now pushing toys — as in cars — along the ground. That’s something she never ever did. And she started putting blocks into a box. There is a lot more communication; she is very affectionate now, especially with me. She comes up and is always giving me hugs and kisses, and we hadn’t seen anything like that for at least two and a half years. She is now four.”
“Within a few days of starting Sound Therapy, she woke up at 2 or 3 in the morning and she was actually scaling sounds from low to high pitch.
“She has been on Sound Therapy for four weeks now and after just two weeks she managed to say “drink” —or “ink” — and “up”. Khiara has never said a word since she was probably three months when she could say “mum”.”
The parents also describe changes in her repetitive, self-soothing behaviours. “She has virtually stopped grinding her teeth, which she was doing all the time. She’s not rocking as much. Now she will entertain herself with something else, she will go and play with blocks or something.”
One of the common traits of autism is an insensitivity to pain. They also describe how their daughter had greater awareness of pain, better coordination, balance, appetite and a reduced number of ear infections.
“We definitely are really, really happy with the results. What we have got out of Khiara so far, we actually feel like we have got a little girl.”
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