Matthew Sumida: A Day at Sea World

Monday, September 15, 2008

A Day at Sea World

We decided to take advantage of our passes to Sea World and the beautiful weather so we headed down there to spend the day with friends. Good weather, good friends and a passel of happy kids....who could ask for more. Matthew had so much fun and loved being with his adorable little pals!

Our friends who make these times so memorable....

Our wild and crazy bunch!

So glad we have you guys in our lives. You are all very special to us!

4 comments:

Ms. to u said...: Looks like you guys had a fun day. Matthew is so cute and full of smiles. Seems like yesterday we were sending you a bridal shower gift and now your baby boy is 3!
Hugs to your beautiful family.; September 16, 2008 at 9:11 AM
Anonymous said...: I absolutely love your blog....I feel that I can keep up with the daily lives of all 3 of you! I wish you guys were closer! Looks like Matthew has a really cute new haircut! Marching Band & Tennis are keeping the Fernandez Family busy this fall...will be in touch soon.; September 16, 2008 at 9:05 PM
Anonymous said...: I love that you have a blog. Now my hard drive is not slow because it is filled with pictures of Matthew. I can just peek at your web page.
Seriously, he is so cute and you get how happy he is in his smile. Makes me want to squeeze him! I love the pic of him looking at Mark. Very sweet.; September 16, 2008 at 10:14 PM
Trojan Fan said...: Glad to see you all having fun! Matthew looks so happy, he is doing great! I am sure you guys are really stressed out right now. You are in our thoughts. Keep us posted.; September 17, 2008 at 5:45 PM

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Matthew Dean

We started this blog because we wanted to be able to keep our loved ones up to date on Matthew and the wonderful progress he is making. It has been a crazy time since receiving Matthew's diagnosis of moderate to severe Autism in February 2007.
Autism is classified by the World Health Organization and American Psychological Association as a developmental disability resulting from a disorder of the human central nervous system. It is considered to be a neurodevelopmental disorder. It typically begins before 3 and is lifelong. It is characterized by varying degrees of impairment in verbal & non verbal communication skills, social interactions, and restricted, repetitive & stereotyped patterns of behavior. Children w/autism often fail to respond to their name, are unable to speak or have delayed speech and often avoid eye contact. They tend to engage in repetitive movements like rocking, spinning, hand flapping and in self-abusive behavior such as biting or head-banging. All behaviors that Matthew was exhibiting regularly. At the time we sent letters to our loved ones, we described what autism was and that there was no cure for autism. Well...... that is not the case. You can recover from autism and to that end we are pursuing a combination of therapies. Matthew is in an intense intervention program consisting of ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis), Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy. He is in this program for between 6-8 hours daily. He is also on a gluten-free and casein-free diet which he has been on since February 2007. We began biomedical intervention in June 2007 as well and homeopathy in April 2008. We read stories all of the time about these parents who start the diet, biomed or other modalities and see a miracle before their eyes. We have not had that experience but with each added intervention we see improvement..... 10% here, 8% there. We know that we will reach that 100% mark and that day will be the second best day of our lives, the first being when our little angel was born! We will update this as often as possible to that you can celebrate Matthew's success with us.

Monday, September 15, 2008

A Day at Sea World

4 comments:

Matthew Dean

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