Matthew Sumida: November 2008

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving 2008

What I am most thankful for..............

This precious boy that has made our lives complete.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

OK, I know I am a bit biased but is that face precious or what! This is Matthew’s very first school picture and I had to share it. It is so very sweet to us because we had so much doubt that this day would be. Matthew loves school and has made such incredible progress there. He attends a wonderful school where everyone is so supportive of him. It is a great feeling to see him in a place where he is safe, loved and appreciated for his many strengths and exceptional qualities. We know the challenges that are still ahead and we are still struggling with many issues but the past year is a testament of all that is possible. We could not be more proud of our little guy. He is an amazing little boy!
We love you sweet pea!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Thomas the Train

It has not been a load of fun around our house recently between the stomach flu, croup, surgery…so even though Matthew was so sick we just could not say no when he begged to go to the Thomas the Train event we promised. We only stayed for about an hour because Matthew was feeling awful but he cracked a few smiles as he rode the train. We did not take many photos but I just loved these.

Are these 2 peas in a pod or what?

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.