An Autism diagnoses in not the end of the world. In fact, it is the beginning of a journey.  That journey will have very many ups and downs, but it will be one of the most rewarding experiences you will travel.

My name is Bonnie Roman, and I am the mother of a beautiful young man names Carlos.  Carlos was diagnosed with Autism at the age of three, but our journey started much earlier.  We noticed soon after Carlos was born that he was reacting to vibrations and sounds on a much higher level than was normal.  The next red flag was the typical milestones; Carlos was much slower than other children at meeting his developmental milestones; often not meeting them at all. That’s when we knew something was going on.

That is when the fun of siting on year-long waiting lists started. Not so fun!  At eighteen months Carlos went on his first waiting list of many. It took almost a year and a half for our son to be diagnosed with Autism. We were glad to have an answer to why Carlos was the way he was but still when we heard those words “Autism Spectrum Disorder” we went through a difficult process as a family.  It was amix of emotions. We felt grief but we were also filled with relief. Relief that we had answers and now would receive assistance. But assistance didn’t come right away like you think it should after receiving a diagnosis like Autism. There was more waiting on lists to receive government funded services. But the good news was that the help we   needed trickled in with time, and Carlos started to show signs of progress.

This is when I decided that I would step up to help give my son more of a fighting chance. Rather than just waiting for the government to set us up with the therapy they funded at the time, I started to research what approach I would want to take with my son.  I met a great group of parents at a seminar, and we started our own support group called A-Plus and this path led us to Narmilee.