♪♪
Sherilyn Kimzey: I tell him goodnight every
night and he says, night night, I love you.
That's, you know, something I did not know
I'd ever hear so that has been huge.
He is always making just strides forward and
forward.
♪♪
Uh-oh, I didn't hear you say go. Ready?
♪♪
Set.
Go!
Sherilyn: He has always been very, very happy.
But there was a lot of moments of anxiety and
stress and things that we are seeing a lot less of
and I think that is because he is just kind of
figuring out how to interact with the world
better.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.
So Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed up the spout
again.
Sherilyn: I can't imagine my life, our lives, how it
was a year ago just because it's so different.
We still have a lot of work to do but he is just
marching along making huge, huge strides.
♪♪
Sherilyn: So my son, Fin, he is four years
old.
He has autism.
♪♪
Sherilyn: He is very, very inquisitive,
very curious about the world, mostly items,
objects, not necessarily people so much.
It's so overwhelming in that first beginning
stages because it's a life you never really could
have even planned or you don't even think about
what a person with a child with autism does to help
them, you just don't think about that.
He was a very easy, happy baby, nothing alarming.
As we started to kind of introduce solid foods he
had a really big aversion to it, kind of gagging.
And the biggest kind of red flag was there was no
talking at all.
He just didn't have a lot of even really babbling.
Mama.
Sherilyn: We didn't think autism because he did
always give eye contact, gave kisses and was
affectionate.
I think it was probably his 18 month appointment
his doctor suggested a developmental doctor and
at that point things were kind of popping up a
little more, he's flapping his hands and spinning
around in circles and things like that.
Hi buddy!
Hi!
Lindsay Ward: Fin is a hard worker.
He is going to try really, really hard to do what
you ask of him --
What do you say to mom?
Ma!
-- and this environment is all new
to him at the Children's Autism Project.
So to come in and engage with all kinds of new toys
and new people and new kids really does tell you
a little bit about him as a person.
It's empty!
That's a light.
Sherilyn: We go five days a week here from 9:00 to
11:30 and then he goes over to ChildServe and
they have an Autism Day Health Program.
So during that time he is there for five hours.
You're popping them!
Lindsay: The research on early intervention in
autism is profound.
The earlier a child is diagnosed and intervention
can begin, the more likelihood that you'll
have the most desirable outcomes.
And the most desirable outcomes is to be as
independent as possible.
Pipe cleaner.
Good trying.
Lindsay: So in this case with Fin one of the most
significant barriers for him is that he doesn't
have a concept of safety.
It has been one of our major focuses is to teach
him to stay with us without holding onto our
hand, without running into other rooms.
Stay with me to the lion room.
There you go.
That's staying together.
Lindsay: His other area of big need is his
communication skills.
He has recently learned to make some level of vocal
language and to get his needs and wants met.
However, he is not always understandable.
Say clean --
Clean --
-- er.
Clean-er.
Good trying.
Lindsay: Being understood is so important because it
also is what establishes trust and he comes here
and he needs to trust that when he says something his
words have power so that later in life when he's
older, when he really needs to tell someone that
something is wrong or he needs help with something,
that he has that built in relationship of
communication.
Lindsay: In addition to that, behaviorally there's
some challenges.
He engages in some ceriodopy and you might
have seen that with the pipe cleaner where he kind
of flips them around in front of his eyes.
And when he does those types of things he
disengages from the people around him.
Sherilyn: Realistically you have to kind of keep
in the back of your mind his future, you have to
plan for will he need assistance far into his
adult life, we don't know that because that is kind
of a looming thing that you don't want to think
about as far as when I'm gone what will happen with
him.
Will he be safe? Will he be loved?
Will he be taken care of?
Or will he be able to do that himself?
What are you doing?
♪♪
Sherilyn: He'll be six in June.
He is actually going to start kindergarten this
fall.
It's like you almost can't imagine how things were
just 12 months ago.
It's crazy.
He has always steadily made progress but the
amount of progress that he has made is what is just
so remarkable. It is really, really
important too to be in that intensive therapy
world because that is how you see progress.
Everybody has to be on the same page working really,
really hard to get him to a point where he is able
to be the best he can be.
A yellow star.
A yellow star. You got them all!
High five! Good job!
Jaclyn James: So, Fin not only receives speech
therapy here twice a week, he is also
receiving occupational therapy and he is also
receiving feeding therapy.
He is getting a lot of interaction with our
therapists and his teachers.
Today he asked for assistance multiple times
from me and he requested for different objects or
activities he wanted to play with.
So I would say in the last year and a half he has hit
this explosion where he has just started to speak
more and use his voice to change the environment
around him.
It has been really cool to watch.
One, two, three! Jump! Yay!
Sherilyn: One of his behaviors that we really,
really dealt with was screaming, a lot, covering
his ears and screaming.
And as he has made huge progress in communication
especially --
Oh, it's all gone!
Sherilyn: -- that has gone way, way, way, way down.
So his distress level I would say and his anxiety
level, that is all going down.
Fin works so incredibly hard.
Every little milestone that we meet with him or
every goal that we meet is so huge.
You can't help but feel so proud and happy and
excited.
And there are things that in a typical household
wouldn't be that big of a deal, but to us they are
such huge victories.
♪♪
This program is part of the Move to
Include Initiative made possible with support from
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private
corporation funded by the American people.
♪♪
The Max and Helen Guernsey Charitable
Foundation, in support of educational programming on
statewide Iowa Public Television.
♪♪