Cost of a Miracle
In 1994, when I became pregnant with my son, Christian, I had no idea what difficulties we would face. His biological father left before he turned six weeks old.
At eighteen months of age, my son began exhibiting violent behavior. He was removed from one daycare after another and then placed in State programs for psychoanalysis at $300-$600 every 3 months. For the next three years he would undergo intense behavioral, occupational and speech therapy for sensory issues, auditory and visual processing, behavior and speech. The labels began at eighteen months – Attachment Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and continued to compound until, at four years old he had attained PDD, a generic Autism diagnosis. He was the most violent toddler my caseworker had scene on record.
With each new program, he grew more withdrawn and violent and still had no cognitive reasoning or language by 3½ yrs of age. The number of programs that would accept him dwindled down to one - the Children's Behavioral Therapy Unit for severely Autistic children. I was told by my caseworker and therapists that Christian's future as a violent toddler meant he would be institutionalized for life. They couldn't determine the causes or triggers for his violent outbursts.
September of 1999 report reads, "Christian had 54 physical aggressions to persons (hurting himself, throwing himself off things,) 19 physical aggressions towards objects (throwing toys, chairs) and 9 bites to others during this month."
He had been in attendance for 15 days. The rate charge was $110.00 for this 4 hour a day intensive behavior therapy. I was encouraged to send him to an "inpatient center for toddlers" in Orem, Utah, where I could see him every two weeks on the weekends. That was the beginning of discouragement. With each phone call, I was turned down by one agency after another - and as a single parent, the state would not pay the $200.00 a month I needed to get him into the institutions he needed. I was told that I "should sign over guardianship" of this one I loved so much.
I wept before the Lord that day. As soon as Christian was asleep I fell into sobs as I opened my Bible. I believed in my heart that if God had given me this child, then He would give me the means to take care of him, but my thoughts were confusing. "Maybe, I deserve to lose him - just like my husband. I have made such a mess of my life. God knows I'm not a good mother."
I was exhausted emotionally and physically. I told myself, "If I must give him up, I must find some direction in God's Word." I opened the Bible to the book of John, chapter 9 - and my eyes fell on verses 1-3. ".And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?' Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him." It answered the very arguments of my heart. Yes, I had made mistakes, but I was not being punished - that wasn't why this was happening. I read it again and again. I started to cry, but this time, I felt joy and peace that I couldn't understand.
I had believed that this situation was my deserved punishment, because of my mistakes and sins. But in that half hour, something had changed, forever. I believed with all my heart that somehow my Savior would make a way, and He wasn't punishing me for my mistakes.
I called a local church and told them the circumstances of my son and they helped me get to church and prayed with us. I started going to church and studying the Bible. As I read, I realized I had a wrong view and understanding of God and love and forgiveness. As many people prayed and fasted for me - my life was turned around. The changes came, just as the Lord promised, and even more than I had asked for or imagined. It began when I turned to trust Him as my personal Savior from very desperate circumstances.
Psalm 10:17-18 "You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed."
Christian was removed from the institution in March of 2000. Within a year I met Linda Kane, an ICAN (www.icando.org) Neurodevelopmentalist, at a homeschool conference in Ogden, Utah. She approached developmental delays in a very different way than any other therapist we had seen. She talked about children being created in the image of God and that each stage of development in a baby’s life is important to avoid function and learning problems later on. She described to me how each one of Christian's function problems could be addressed individually with exercises that would create growth and development in the brain. My new husband Rick and I grabbed every article she had on the table and aggressively worked with what we knew.
When we began with exercises, Christian was almost five years of age, and “delayed" at the pons level of the brain in all but one of the reflexive/ expressive areas on the developmental profile and was processing at a two- three. His vocabulary was high, but it was like a recording. He could say phonetically difficult words, like "duck", but if you showed him a picture of a duck or pointed to a duck, he had no association or cognitive language. His pupilary response was very slow. Humor and social interactions were very difficult for him, and he was hypersensitive to sound, so we stayed away from crowds, music concerts, and even church worship was difficult form him. Any sound at medium volume in the mid-range would make him cover his ears and hide.
He had an accelerated auditory memory, but it was automatic and not cognitive. He could listen to a song or movie and “re-play” it verbatim, but he did not experience the music. We learned that Christian was “stimming” auditorily by doing this, he was hearing sounds with more intensity then other input, and this was keeping his attention all the time. Since he needed to develop other areas for him to function, we removed music for a time until his dominance was established.
Within six months, Christian's auditory and visual processing had jumped to a six. For the first time his language was released, and at first he was stuttering terribly with many reversals in his speech and writing. We continued to target dominance, and within three months, the reversals and stuttering had completely stopped; he began reading, advancing to second grade level books by the end of the year!
It took us a long time to get him on sound therapy, I am sorry to say, but the biggest difference in Christian is how he handles loud environments and music. He no longer has to cover his ears in normal crowds, at the circus or with people. Academically in fourth grade, he tested at a ninth grade reading and comprehension level. In all other areas he is normal/typical today.
We re-introduced music later, and Christian has composed many thematic and orchestral pieces by his young fourteen years of age. (Christian’s Rhapsody in C major)http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=7LWLPGNX
No one who knows Christian today suspects that he had problems. We are so thankful for remediation and divine intervention. We praise God for the plasticity of the brain and the wonders of His guidance!
Today it is may honor to be in training that will allow me to offer the same comfort, hope and a future that God has given to me! Thanks, Linda for sharing your story and showing others the path to hope.
"To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself." -Josh Billings
Source: Weekend Encounter, by Dick Innes, Copyright (c) ACTS International,2004,http://www.actsweb.org/subscribe.php
Thanks,
Stephanie Lane
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At eighteen months of age, my son began exhibiting violent behavior. He was removed from one daycare after another and then placed in State programs for psychoanalysis at $300-$600 every 3 months. For the next three years he would undergo intense behavioral, occupational and speech therapy for sensory issues, auditory and visual processing, behavior and speech. The labels began at eighteen months – Attachment Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and continued to compound until, at four years old he had attained PDD, a generic Autism diagnosis. He was the most violent toddler my caseworker had scene on record.
With each new program, he grew more withdrawn and violent and still had no cognitive reasoning or language by 3½ yrs of age. The number of programs that would accept him dwindled down to one - the Children's Behavioral Therapy Unit for severely Autistic children. I was told by my caseworker and therapists that Christian's future as a violent toddler meant he would be institutionalized for life. They couldn't determine the causes or triggers for his violent outbursts.
September of 1999 report reads, "Christian had 54 physical aggressions to persons (hurting himself, throwing himself off things,) 19 physical aggressions towards objects (throwing toys, chairs) and 9 bites to others during this month."
He had been in attendance for 15 days. The rate charge was $110.00 for this 4 hour a day intensive behavior therapy. I was encouraged to send him to an "inpatient center for toddlers" in Orem, Utah, where I could see him every two weeks on the weekends. That was the beginning of discouragement. With each phone call, I was turned down by one agency after another - and as a single parent, the state would not pay the $200.00 a month I needed to get him into the institutions he needed. I was told that I "should sign over guardianship" of this one I loved so much.
I wept before the Lord that day. As soon as Christian was asleep I fell into sobs as I opened my Bible. I believed in my heart that if God had given me this child, then He would give me the means to take care of him, but my thoughts were confusing. "Maybe, I deserve to lose him - just like my husband. I have made such a mess of my life. God knows I'm not a good mother."
I was exhausted emotionally and physically. I told myself, "If I must give him up, I must find some direction in God's Word." I opened the Bible to the book of John, chapter 9 - and my eyes fell on verses 1-3. ".And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?' Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him." It answered the very arguments of my heart. Yes, I had made mistakes, but I was not being punished - that wasn't why this was happening. I read it again and again. I started to cry, but this time, I felt joy and peace that I couldn't understand.
I had believed that this situation was my deserved punishment, because of my mistakes and sins. But in that half hour, something had changed, forever. I believed with all my heart that somehow my Savior would make a way, and He wasn't punishing me for my mistakes.
I called a local church and told them the circumstances of my son and they helped me get to church and prayed with us. I started going to church and studying the Bible. As I read, I realized I had a wrong view and understanding of God and love and forgiveness. As many people prayed and fasted for me - my life was turned around. The changes came, just as the Lord promised, and even more than I had asked for or imagined. It began when I turned to trust Him as my personal Savior from very desperate circumstances.
Psalm 10:17-18 "You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed."
Christian was removed from the institution in March of 2000. Within a year I met Linda Kane, an ICAN (www.icando.org) Neurodevelopmentalist, at a homeschool conference in Ogden, Utah. She approached developmental delays in a very different way than any other therapist we had seen. She talked about children being created in the image of God and that each stage of development in a baby’s life is important to avoid function and learning problems later on. She described to me how each one of Christian's function problems could be addressed individually with exercises that would create growth and development in the brain. My new husband Rick and I grabbed every article she had on the table and aggressively worked with what we knew.
When we began with exercises, Christian was almost five years of age, and “delayed" at the pons level of the brain in all but one of the reflexive/ expressive areas on the developmental profile and was processing at a two- three. His vocabulary was high, but it was like a recording. He could say phonetically difficult words, like "duck", but if you showed him a picture of a duck or pointed to a duck, he had no association or cognitive language. His pupilary response was very slow. Humor and social interactions were very difficult for him, and he was hypersensitive to sound, so we stayed away from crowds, music concerts, and even church worship was difficult form him. Any sound at medium volume in the mid-range would make him cover his ears and hide.
He had an accelerated auditory memory, but it was automatic and not cognitive. He could listen to a song or movie and “re-play” it verbatim, but he did not experience the music. We learned that Christian was “stimming” auditorily by doing this, he was hearing sounds with more intensity then other input, and this was keeping his attention all the time. Since he needed to develop other areas for him to function, we removed music for a time until his dominance was established.
Within six months, Christian's auditory and visual processing had jumped to a six. For the first time his language was released, and at first he was stuttering terribly with many reversals in his speech and writing. We continued to target dominance, and within three months, the reversals and stuttering had completely stopped; he began reading, advancing to second grade level books by the end of the year!
It took us a long time to get him on sound therapy, I am sorry to say, but the biggest difference in Christian is how he handles loud environments and music. He no longer has to cover his ears in normal crowds, at the circus or with people. Academically in fourth grade, he tested at a ninth grade reading and comprehension level. In all other areas he is normal/typical today.
We re-introduced music later, and Christian has composed many thematic and orchestral pieces by his young fourteen years of age. (Christian’s Rhapsody in C major)http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=7LWLPGNX
No one who knows Christian today suspects that he had problems. We are so thankful for remediation and divine intervention. We praise God for the plasticity of the brain and the wonders of His guidance!
Today it is may honor to be in training that will allow me to offer the same comfort, hope and a future that God has given to me! Thanks, Linda for sharing your story and showing others the path to hope.
"To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself." -Josh Billings
Source: Weekend Encounter, by Dick Innes, Copyright (c) ACTS International,2004,http://www.actsweb.org/subscribe.php
Thanks,
Stephanie Lane
Back to Testimonies
