Experts call Autism the fastest-growing developmental disorder striking an estimated one in every 150 children born.
There is no cure, but for parents long on hope, they will often do whatever it takes to help their autistic child. Some of those parents are turning to a treatment new to South Carolina called the Sensory Learning Program, and most hail it as remarkable.
Parents who've gone through the treatment, for the most part, say their children are doing things they weren't doing before treatment.
Derek Gedmintas and his wife recently found out there son Jonas is autistic. Doctors diagnosed his case as mild to moderate.
"The biggest thing was he had a significant language delay for his age," Derek said.
Jonas is 3-years-old, and he displayed some classical autism symptoms, such as language delays, hand flapping, walking on his tip toes and poor eye contact.
At first, Derek passed them off as typical three-year-old behavior, but soon Jonas' classmates seemed to be gliding past him at an alarming parents.
"When we would go to pick him up from preschool, the rest of the kids would be saying 'hi jonas' mom' and 'hi jonas dad.' And Jonas wouldn't say anything."
When the official diagnosis finally came, Derek and his wife went searching for any kind of help.
"If they told me that bathing in tomato paste and laying him down in a pot of garlic would help, I'd do it."
They turned to SpeechWorks in Columbia to try a new treatment called the Sensory Learning Program.
"The good thing about this program is that it's not requiring a lot of motivation from the child," Christie Jones, a speech pathologist at SpeechWorks said.
The therapy involves three parts designed to stimulate sight, sound and motion together. It's often difficult for autistic children to get all three modalities in synch. The first step is simple. The patient, usually children, but not always, lies on a table, much like one at a doctor's office.
"Sometimes it's very hard for them to tolerate input, sensory-wise, from the environment. Sometimes if they are really engaged in one activity, you know, maybe watching TV or really focusing on something they may actually turn off their auditory system."
That's where the second step comes in: headphones. Music plays like a broken record so that children can't easily tune it out.
The final piece of the puzzle is directly overhead, a box with a light about the size of a golf ball.
The table then begins to slowly move, the headphones turn on, and the light above gently fades in and out, creating the effect that the light is moving and not the table. All three modalities (sight, sound and motion) are now engaged.
"Every day in daily life we use sight, sound and motion so they need to be stimulated together so that they can learn to work together and coordinate so that we can better process that information," said Jones.
For 12 days straight the patient will come into the office and do this for about an hour a day. After that, there's in-home treatment for about 12 more days.
Derek wasn't so sure Jonas would cooperate.
"Both my wife and I felt, 'OK, is he going to lay there on this table, in the dark, and let this table move, look at this light and have headphones on?' We didn't think he'd do it," Derek said.
He did do it and just finished therapies a few weeks ago. Derek tells us Jonas is saying words he's never said before, seems more engaged, and looking him in the eye now. He seems, too, more aware of his surroundings.
"We have noticed since then that his eye contact is significantly better. He's become verbal. It's just the little things. He's not reciting Henry the 5th, no great monologues from Shakespeare, but there's certainly been a change for him."
Not everyone is so sure about the Sensory Learning Program. Critics claim parents see what they want to see, creating a placebo effect. Some parents go in looking for a cure, and that's simply not the case.
"We try to tell everyone this is not going to get rid of your problems, this is not a cure-all, but this is something that hopefully you'll see some great progress in your child," Jones told us.
For Derek, however, he'll take whatever progress he can get.
"If this helps him 10%, then it's worth it. If it helps him 80% then obviously that's better, but at this point I'll take whatever I can get."
Just last week, Jonas said "mommy" for the first time.
The treatment costs $3,000, but most insurance companies will cover the cost.
There are two Sensory Learning Program offices in South Carolina, one in Columbia and one in Easley.
You can call the Columbia office at (803) 767-4832 or the Easley office at (864) 295-0944.
