Matthew Sumida: The "Yellow Jackets"

Sunday, September 12, 2010

The "Yellow Jackets"

Matthew had his first day back to school this week. He was so excited and had a great week.

His wonderful teachers Mrs. G and Miss Mansi.

Daddy was there for his first day back too.
*****
Such an exciting week. Matthew started soccer this week. I was not sure how it would go but he did so well. He had fun and was really good. Another milestone, when we tried sports last year it was a disaster. It was disheartening to deal with behaviors so I was a bit apprehensive but this year was a dream!
This was my baby at his first practice.

Could he be any more handsome?

Doing some warm up activities.

He had fun and got right into the mix.

A little clip of my guy "dribbling" into the game.

How good is my little soccer stud! My little Pele'!
Love you little guy!

3 comments:

EP said...: I love it! He looks so cute in his jersey! :)

How great is it that he is playing soccer?!! :D

Love, Elizabeth; September 12, 2010 at 11:19 AM
Elena - mom, wife, friend, and advocate said...: Nobody better make Matthew mad!!! He may be tiny, but on that soccer field, he will be a giant among men... Love you - E; September 12, 2010 at 12:24 PM
Trojan Fan said...: Makes me tear up when I see how far he has come. Great job Matthew, great job Mom and Dad!; September 14, 2010 at 7:26 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.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

The "Yellow Jackets"

3 comments:

Matthew Dean

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