We are the parents of a 29 year old son with autism.  We have created this web site to share our journey through autism in hopes that it will help others dealing with autism. It has been quite a Journey with our son Philip. There has been much laughter and tears along our journey.

Philip was born normal and regressed into autism at the age of 16 months. There is much speculation as to what causes autism. As for our son, we believe the MMR vaccine was the final straw that sent him into the world of autism. We try not to dwell on what caused it, but how can we improve his life now.

He also has had his share of immune issues, including ear infections from 5 months old to 2 years of age. He was on so many antibiotics, which caused many gut issues.

We are fortunate that Philip is a very affectionate kid. He loves to be hugged and tickled. He does have many sensory issues such as noise sensitivity and craving deep pressure which have gotten better with age. Philip likes routine although is starting to adjust if told ahead of time what will happen. He does deal with a lot of OCD which causes difficulties. He has a severe language delay that is finally starting to improve with the help of ABA. He likes to be around other kids if they are not too loud. He doesn’t interact much, we believe because of his language delay. Philip does have a lot of verbal stims which tend to get worse after he is sick.

We have tried pretty much everything out there for him. He has been a tough kid, always reacting opposite of what is expected. We were blessed through the years with an awesome doctor, Dr. Jeff Bradstreet. He never gave up on Philip and has helped him so much. We are sad that he is no longer with us as we take the journey into Philip’s adulthood but grateful for the time we had with him to get Philip on the right track.

Although we have tried many treatments, the best treatments have been IVIG, HBOT, TSO, yeast treatments, ABA/VB and prayer. He has also responded very well to riding horses. We did special diets for years but never really noticed anything. The SC Diet seemed to help for awhile but he couldn’t digest the nuts so it was too limiting. Many others have done diets with their kids with great results. We tried chelating but had set backs, perhaps due to his stomach issues.

Philip has had speech therapy since he was 2 years old with some progress but once starting the ABA/verbal behavior, he finally took off. Philip receives Occupational therapy, Speech therapy, Physical therapy and ABA therapy. It took us many years and a lot of therapist to get to the awesome therapists he has now. They are truly a dedicated, loving group of people.

Philip has come a long way and we are so proud of him. His latest achievement was to run his first Gasparilla 5k with his Dad. We were worried about crowds and his OCD’s for balloons and cameras but he impressed everyone and did awesome.