Agents of Speech Programmes are Wonderful
Our boy is 13 years old and is diagnosed as autistic with a severe speech-language disorder. Shortly after his diagnosis at the age of 3, I decided to do everything I could to help him. Like most parents, I tried diets, biomedical interventions, and everything else I thought would help. It felt like a treasure hunt—I truly believed we just had to find the right supplement or therapy. While I learned a lot about health and nutrition that helps our family stay healthy, I eventually realized these interventions didn't have a long-lasting effect on his speech or general learning. He was missing the foundational experiences he needed to actually learn. By the 3rd grade, when numerical assessments began, I realized I had to step in because he wasn't retaining anything at school. Due to sound sensitivities and his speech challenges, he couldn't follow the regular curriculum, even with an adapted program (though he stayed in it because he excelled at math). I began preparing his school materials using Boardmaker pictures. It worked well in 3rd grade, and I thought, "This is it! He just learns differently." I was wrong. By the 4th grade, his grades and his behaviour worsened because the workload was simply too much for him; he would spend classes gently bouncing in his chair from the overwhelm. I knew we needed help, and in the summer of 2024, I found Ming on YouTube. Now, I can say with absolute certainty that the "Tell Me Why" programme helped us the most, and its effects are the most long-term of anything we’ve tried. It was like opening a Pandora’s box of potential. Everything he learned has stayed with him and continues to improve. His behaviour at school got better, he talks more, and his learning improved significantly. After that, we continued with "My Story Time." Everything that had improved before progressed even further. He now understands the structure of stories, answers questions, and most importantly, his listening skills have improved, which has boosted his learning yet again. From my experience, no amount of traditional speech therapy can come close to the results you get from working directly with your child. Through this process, you learn together, and you finally understand exactly where and why the struggles are happening. We are absolutely thrilled with the gains Jan has made. Both programmes are exceptionally well put together, and seeing his progress has been wonderful. I can’t wait to start the new programme as soon as it's ready. Thanks to AOS—I really wish I had found them sooner. My hope is also that my story will help someone in the same position as I was, to get on the right track sooner than we did. Because I know that if we started with AOS when he was younger, his delay would be much smaller!