November 8,2011

"I became a member of the Walk shortly after my son was diagnosed with autism.  I have two lovely children, Logan (3) and Grace (19 months).  My son, Logan was diagnosed with regressive autism at 21 months of age (meaning that he had normal development and then lost all language, communication and social skills). 

We as a family were devastated. We had just given birth to our daughter when we noticed our son had somehow slipped away from us.  Immediately after diagnosis I immersed myself in information on autism, trying to find a cause, a cure, a glimmer of hope.  I found myself feeling extremely helpless, frustrated and overwhelmed in anguish.  We wanted to do the most promising therapies because of the huge stress on early intervention.  Experts believe that the earlier children receive appropriate therapy, the higher the possibility of significant improvement.  We had read many testimonials of children being recovered from autism using a therapy called Applied Behavioral Analysis.  Although we could not afford this therapy we were determined to help our son and chose to put ourselves in serious credit card debt and beg from family and friends to pay for the promising therapy. 

This is when I found Walk for Autism-Virginia. This was my glimmer of hope and my family's saving grace. The walk not only provided resources and a helping hand but the Walk committee currently consists of people, mainly parents of children on the autism spectrum, who aside from their jobs, family commitments and special needs children, put their blood, sweat and tears into this necessary cause."

The Autism Society of Northern Virginia not only provides important information and resources to help individuals and families coping with Autism, it provides real connections to community and hope for people who did not believe hope was possible.