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How would you like to spend half of your life going to the doctor regularly and being in therapy every week? Not to mention working with your mom and therapists at home five days a week. Just ask Averie White what it’s like.
Four years ago, little Averie was diagnosed with autism when her parents noticed that Averie’s speech was not developing as they thought it should. Several doctors missed this admittedly tricky diagnosis but the Wolfson Children’s Hospital specialist in the Orange Park Rehabilitation Center picked right up on it
For the next three years Averie received speech therapy in the Orange Park office. Feeding therapy was begun last year when Averie refused to eat.
Averie is now 6 ½ years old.
A lot has been packed into Averie’s short life. And it has re-focused her family who work daily at home with Averie so that her progress can be sustained and continued.
Wolfson therapists Judy, Joanne and Terry worked steadfastly with Averie, including her mother in the sessions so she could learn the techniques and language that might get through to Averie. What happens daily at home reinforces the work of the therapists.
Averie’s mom says that “for a kid they said might not ever talk, she surely is talking! She’s responsive and with us in the sense of not living in the ‘trapped’ world that many autistic kids have trouble breaking through.” Averie is successfully meeting many of her challenges and doing things her parents never thought would happen.
Averie has just started kindergarten, in a special class for autistic children. But she is slowly being incorporated into a mainstream class.
According to Averie’s mom, things look promising for her daughter. “We feel her prognosis is very good and she’ll be in the regular education curriculum full-time. She’s going to go to college, have a career, she’s going to get married and have a family of her own someday. We keep our eye on that prize. You have to when you are dealing with challenges: focus on what you’re working towards.”
Averie is one of the lucky ones. She has love to support her, therapy to help her improve and the medical professionals at Wolfson to guide the way. “If it weren't for them, I don’t know where we’d be,” states Mrs. White. |
