This is Bright Eyes, who is ten years old, funny, smart, gorgeous and cuddly. He loves trains, numbers movies and music and is a wonderful reader, speller and mathematician.

Bright Eyes lives with autistic spectrum disorder and ADHD. It's not something that makes him happy or helps him relate to the people around him. He is chronically anxious, often speaks in scripts from books or movies, is obsessive about his interests, can be aggressive and angry and has real trouble doing anything that is new. 

This blog chronicles our journey together towards remediation of the autism, and towards a happier life for him and for everyone around him. It's my attempt to stay sane in the chaos and possibly help anyone who's facing the same thing in some small way.

Therapy: we have been an RDI family primarily. We stuck to the program solidly for five or six years and now work informally, following the RDI principles of remediation. Bright Eyes has seen a homeopath and a kinesiologist and has done a form of kinesiology called Brain Gym. He does Samonas Sound Therapy and the exercises from Move To Learn. He was on regular medication (risperadone) to keep his anxiety under control for three years, but since seeing a MINDD doctor for biomed help, we have been able to wean him off it with no bad effects. He now also takes dex-amphetamine and is doing well on that. He follows a standard Gluten and casein free diet, but we also take out preservatives, soy and potato as he is sensitive to those.

Bright Eyes attends school five days a week with six hours of help from a teacher's aide, although these days he doesn't really need the help too much. He continues to increase the things he's willing to do at school and is slowly improving his social skills.

We also pray for him. God has done great things, and even though I haven't seen my 'big miracle' yet, I am seeing plenty of little ones every month.