خبرهای انگلیسی

Noyan’s Mother experience of Tehran Autism Center

A mother’s journey to her son’s recovery at CTAD

My second born, Noyan, was born on one of the last days of summer. The pregnancy went smoothly and the birth of our healthy baby boy brought so much joy to his sister’s life.

Days passed by, and it seemed Noyan was ahead of her sister and his peers in all growth and developmental milestones. His timely sitting, crawling, walking and even verbal skills were superb. Since my daughter was quite shy, I remember how Noyan seemed to be her opposite in having the tendency to mingle with strangers and appeared very social at the time. Living in the U.S, we had heard a lot about autism but unfortunately we weren’t well informed about it; for example we thought that autism was an innate disorder and autistic children don’t even make eye contact when they are infants. We were confident that Noyan didn’t have autism because he was all normal and had eye contact with us. How wrong we were!

When Noyan was one year old, he began to utter two- word sentences and had started walking although he would always run instead of walk. A few months passed and I suddenly realized that to my surprise, Noyan who was once reluctant to watch TV, was now crying and begging to have screen time and cell phones. He wouldn’t respond when I called him, didn’t look at me, couldn’t say words he had learned previously, let alone making any sentences. All he did was running, licking different surfaces, watching TV and despites my strict screen time rules, I couldn’t manage his will to watch TV. He was now 18 months- old but appeared to have regressed to a point of time before his first birthday.

Whenever I asked for advice, I was told that boys are generally naughty and some don’t start speaking before the age of five; but I felt that something was not right. I somehow suspected autism and after lots of research realized that it was best for my son to receive treatment in Iran. The decision was tough to make but we returned to Iran for the sake of our son. At that time I was indecisive as to which doctor I had to choose from a handful of options! First I visited a psychologist who diagnosed my son as having speaking delay and not autism. I wasn’t convinced so I went to a psychiatrist whose diagnosis was autism and required us to revisit and start the treatment process.

My search went on until I found a doctor who said that autism is treatable under the age of three. I grabbed the first opportunity to set an appointment with him. On the assessment day, when we entered, we saw a family distributing sweats and shedding tears of joy. I asked what was going on and was told that their child was diagnosed at the age of 21 months and after three months of following Dr. Pouretemad’s protocol, is now symptom free.

Seeing this with my own eyes was a miracle for me. It now knew this claim wasn’t a lie, publicity or exaggeration of any sort.

Finally it was our turn to receive the unfortunate autism diagnosis from the doctor! Although hearing the diagnosis made me wish for death, meeting that family had given me big hope. Dr.Pouretemad explained to us that his protocol for the first three months of the treatments asks for the parents or any other person who can spare time, to engage in interactive play with the child during his waking time. Even seconds matter when treating these children. So we were thought how to play and interact with him.

He explained to us how we had to have a strategic plan for our son from the time he woke up to the time he turned in. We had to have a visual plan which was shown to him and was implanted daily! For example, when he wanted to have breakfast, first we would show him a picture of a breakfast table, and then told him to eat breakfast, and when we wanted to start the playing phase of the program, we had to have twelve games ready to go for the next hour, and change them every five minutes, we would play the games in order of the pictures that we had shown him. In this way, the child stayed engaged at all times, and because the games changed every five minutes, he didn’t enter the repetition and stereotype phase; He wouldn’t also get bored from playing and would learn to plan and predict. It also meant no TV or cell phones were allowed.

From the moment we set foot in the house, we shut down all electronic devices including mobile phones and TV and started following Doctor Pouretemad’s instructions. Believe it or not, after only one week I started seeing minor changes in my son, and that was my motivation for continuing down this path. We minimized the number of outings. Well, at first it was very difficult and disappointing to interact with a child, who wouldn’t look at you, can’t focus and wouldn’t respond to you, but I had no expectations for any feedback or learning for the first month. I was just trying to do my best to pull him out of his world and insert myself into his world. For example, in the beginning, when holding a book, Noyan wouldn’t look at the pages or pictures, instead he would just quickly turn the pages, but in that one second in between I would try my best to point out the pictures and name them as eagerly as I could. After a month, he gradually learned to turn the pages more slowly and take some time to look at the pictures, until he finally repeated the shapes presented in the book; that was a huge accomplishment for me. After a while, from very simple games such as pulling on blanket, blowing balloons, we got to more complicated games like puzzles, and Lego.

After two months, changes were so obvious that even those around us who didn’t know anything, took noticed. Slowly, Noyan began to say new words and by the end of month three, his vocabulary had grown from five to eighty words, and then sentence making began. The work was extremely hard, I even reached the point of depression, at times he wouldn’t cooperate but when I saw the amount of progress, I would get determined again to keep on fighting.

Once again came the assessment day! And we had to get Noyan’s progress checked. His eye contact had reached a great point. He would completely respond to call outs and he was obedient.

With the Doctor’s discretion, without taking any classes, my son was completely out of the autism spectrum disorder, that day was one of the best days of my life, and Doctor Pouretemad was like a God- sent angle that helped my son recover.

 

 

Mother’s experience of Tehran Autism Center, services. Many’s mom

Mani showed no signs of any kind of problems up to the age of one, other than being grumpy and rarely laughing or smiling he seemed perfectly fine. For instance, during the first year, we celebrated his birthday every month, bought candles and cakes, yet there were no signs of any smiles in the pictures, this sometimes even ruined our celebration. The other thing that was strange for us was his extreme enthusiasm for television, music, cell phones, in general any type of digital device, he would get lost in the music or watch TV without blinking.

His communication with us was practically lost between the ages of 12 to 17 months! For example, he would keep on running without acknowledging our present in a park, or in parties he would fade away in the music without raising his head. In one party it seemed as if he was staring at people’s feet and was lost in the music. He had almost destroyed our enthusiasm to spend time with him. I remember in one party he was hugging one person after another as if he had no emotions whatsoever towards his parents compared to strangers. He clearly had no emotions towards anybody. All of these were very strange and confusing for us, but the thing that made us most concerned was his unresponsiveness to his name when we called him. He showed no reaction at all, even if we yelled out his name from one foot away, but if we told him ‘Hello’ (pretending we’re on the phone) he would rush to get the phone from us.

Having these concerns, we started browsing the web and with the help of a pediatrician, found “Tehran Autism Center”. In the first assessment of him at 17 months old, we came to realize the fowling deficiencies:

  • Mani Had no eye contact (or would only establish eye contact very briefly).
  • Did not follow finger indications.
  • Did not point at anything with his index finger (only reached out to the object).
  • Did not have joint attention (when the doctor spun a musical spinner, he didn’t look at the doctor’s face even for once; instead he was lost watching in the musical spinning toy).
  • Showed no reaction to his name.
  • Was restless and tried to leave the evaluation room by kicking the door.
  • Did not play with the toys properly (turned the cars around and spun the wheels)
  • Did not follow the simplest of instructions such as holding a glass of water.
  • Easily left the room in the arms of the staff members and didn’t feel strange at all.

Doctor Pouretemad’s conclusion from the first assessment was that either he was on the autism spectrum or was a digital child. As he further explained, in both cases the treatment was the same, and this was just the beginning of our hard work and stress. For us nothing came ahead of Mani’s treatment. On that very first night we finished the book ‘Autism in Seven Mirrors’ and watched the educational CD. The important point we looked for in the book of “Autism in Seven Mirrors” was whether autism could be cured or not, because as per our understanding (obtained from browsing through websites), autism could not be cured, but reading the book lit up a light at the end of the tunnel and made us start believing and trying, but the question was how?

I remember in the early days, we mistakenly tried to force Mani to turn his head and look at us, but even with the wrong methods like this, we did not leave him alone for a second from the first day not until Dr. Sadeghi’s classes started, which were really great because he taught us proper behavior.

In order not to miss a point, the two of us attended the class, but for the same short time we would also ask for our family’s help, so that Mani would not be without interaction even for a moment, because a sentence from the introduction of the book written by Dr. Pouretamad kept ringing in our ears: ‘The sooner the better, the more the better’

By following Dr.Sadeghi’s instructions the following actions were taken:

  • Complete shutdown of TV and all digital tools in general.
  • Full time interaction and play during the waking hours.
  • Five to six hours of play every day.
  • We posted instructions and different plays all over the walls of the house both for Many and ourselves and our relatives who came to the house to play with him.
  • At the house, if someone was talking, they should have done so by looking at Mani so that no eye contact from Mani would go unnoticed.
  • Any request from Mani that came with crying and tantrum, was remained unanswered.
  • Many had no right to leave the house. He had to stay inside which had no environmental stimulus. (by interaction we mean being present in play).

Dr.Sadeghi’s intervention lasted for two months. Honestly, playing and interacting with a child who had no attention and did neither followed instructions nor was obedient, was really devastating, but it was possible with the help of others and endless effort ( of course, by quitting all of our other activities, and losing 22 pounds/10KG in two months), but our hope was that the Dr. Pouretemad hadn’t given up on our child. Our endless efforts had the following results (In two months and very gradually):

  • Mani wacs following our pointing.
  • Speech was expanded from two words to fifty words.
  • Eye contat had reached an acceptable level.

The most important point for us after the two-month period was that we could grab Mani’s attention, but he still had no reaction to his name. The second assessment was when Mani was 20 months years old; His attention and eye contact was interesting and acceptable for Dr.Pouretemad. He authorized ABA treatment; honestly, we were enthusiastic too about starting the ABA program, only problem was the Center did not have any free instructors at the time, so in order to not lose time we started doing it on our own with the help of the ABA book Doctor Pouretemad had written. To be honest, we realized reading one book is not enough to teach all the concepts, still two sentences was being heartwarming for us. First in ABA this fact remains that tomorrow is always a better day than the current day, and second is that it’s a must for the coach to respect the child’s character. Interaction and non-stop play (without even losing five minutes) continued for Mani until ABA started at 20 months.

To be frank, the PI’s behavior towards Mani was interesting for us because it was filled with hope and enthusiasm and made us optimistic about ABA from day one. The first warm ‘Hello’ & ‘How are you’ from Dr. Pouretemad gave us so much hope. The other thing worth mentioning was the very good instructor the center appointed to Mani that kept our hopes alive (always on time, stayed within the boundaries, very kind and committed). Everything was going well and we still tried to interact and play with Mani. The three hours of ABA class was a chance for us to rest a little bit, but we still followed the program by watching films (for example if there was an eye pointing exercise, we would practice the same activity with him during the day).

After a month or two we started going out shopping with Mani. Every time one of us would do the shopping and the other was busy teaching him things, we wouldn’t wait for Mani to learn cloths and shoes from flash cards, instead we taught him about shops and cloths without a pause.

I remember in one of the meetings held in Shahid Beheshti University, Dr.Pouretemad told me: “The program for a child must be compact, family-oriented and education based”. We kept doing the exact same thing nonstop (either interactive or through visual play). Yet some activities were not possible for us. For example, Mani had learned body parts, even ankles, but still couldn’t say Mom or Dad, many of these were the results of ABA program. After all, after six months of ABA the following results were obtained:

  • Reaction to name.
  • Full use of index finger.
  • Orderliness.
  • Awareness of the environment.
  • Successive words and sentences (purposeful and spontaneous).
  • Correct communication with children’s books and toys.
  • Significant laughter and a desire to connect with peers.

Finally, exactly nine months after the initial assessment, at the age of 26 months, after a thorough assessment by Dr. Pouretemad, Mani graduated from the program.

 

A mother’s journey to her son’s recovery at CTAD

A mother’s journey to her son’s recovery at CTAD

My second born, Noyan, was born on one of the last days of summer. The pregnancy went smoothly and the birth of our healthy baby boy brought so much joy to his sister’s life.

Days passed by, and it seemed Noyan was ahead of her sister and his peers in all growth and developmental milestones. His timely sitting, crawling, walking and even verbal skills were superb. Since my daughter was quite shy, I remember how Noyan seemed to be her opposite in having the tendency to mingle with strangers and appeared very social at the time. Living in the U.S, we had heard a lot about autism but unfortunately we weren’t well informed about it; for example we thought that autism was an innate disorder and autistic children don’t even make eye contact when they are infants. We were confident that Noyan didn’t have autism because he was all normal and had eye contact with us. How wrong we were!

When Noyan was one year old, he began to utter two- word sentences and had started walking although he would always run instead of walk. A few months passed and I suddenly realized that to my surprise, Noyan who was once reluctant to watch TV, was now crying and begging to have screen time and cell phones. He wouldn’t respond when I called him, didn’t look at me, couldn’t say words he had learned previously, let alone making any sentences. All he did was running, licking different surfaces, watching TV and despites my strict screen time rules, I couldn’t manage his will to watch TV. He was now 18 months- old but appeared to have regressed to a point of time before his first birthday.

Whenever I asked for advice, I was told that boys are generally naughty and some don’t start speaking before the age of five; but I felt that something was not right. I somehow suspected autism and after lots of research realized that it was best for my son to receive treatment in Iran. The decision was tough to make but we returned to Iran for the sake of our son. At that time I was indecisive as to which doctor I had to choose from a handful of options! First I visited a psychologist who diagnosed my son as having speaking delay and not autism. I wasn’t convinced so I went to a psychiatrist whose diagnosis was autism and required us to revisit and start the treatment process.

My search went on until I found a doctor who said that autism is treatable under the age of three. I grabbed the first opportunity to set an appointment with him. On the assessment day, when we entered, we saw a family distributing sweats and shedding tears of joy. I asked what was going on and was told that their child was diagnosed at the age of 21 months and after three months of following Dr. Pouretemad’s protocol, is now symptom free.

Seeing this with my own eyes was a miracle for me. It now knew this claim wasn’t a lie, publicity or exaggeration of any sort.

Finally it was our turn to receive the unfortunate autism diagnosis from the doctor! Although hearing the diagnosis made me wish for death, meeting that family had given me big hope. Dr.Pouretemad explained to us that his protocol for the first three months of the treatments asks for the parents or any other person who can spare time, to engage in interactive play with the child during his waking time. Even seconds matter when treating these children. So we were thought how to play and interact with him.

He explained to us how we had to have a strategic plan for our son from the time he woke up to the time he turned in. We had to have a visual plan which was shown to him and was implanted daily! For example, when he wanted to have breakfast, first we would show him a picture of a breakfast table, and then told him to eat breakfast, and when we wanted to start the playing phase of the program, we had to have twelve games ready to go for the next hour, and change them every five minutes, we would play the games in order of the pictures that we had shown him. In this way, the child stayed engaged at all times, and because the games changed every five minutes, he didn’t enter the repetition and stereotype phase; He wouldn’t also get bored from playing and would learn to plan and predict. It also meant no TV or cell phones were allowed.

From the moment we set foot in the house, we shut down all electronic devices including mobile phones and TV and started following Doctor Pouretemad’s instructions. Believe it or not, after only one week I started seeing minor changes in my son, and that was my motivation for continuing down this path. We minimized the number of outings. Well, at first it was very difficult and disappointing to interact with a child, who wouldn’t look at you, can’t focus and wouldn’t respond to you, but I had no expectations for any feedback or learning for the first month. I was just trying to do my best to pull him out of his world and insert myself into his world. For example, in the beginning, when holding a book, Noyan wouldn’t look at the pages or pictures, instead he would just quickly turn the pages, but in that one second in between I would try my best to point out the pictures and name them as eagerly as I could. After a month, he gradually learned to turn the pages more slowly and take some time to look at the pictures, until he finally repeated the shapes presented in the book; that was a huge accomplishment for me. After a while, from very simple games such as pulling on blanket, blowing balloons, we got to more complicated games like puzzles, and Lego.

After two months, changes were so obvious that even those around us who didn’t know anything, took noticed. Slowly, Noyan began to say new words and by the end of month three, his vocabulary had grown from five to eighty words, and then sentence making began. The work was extremely hard, I even reached the point of depression, at times he wouldn’t cooperate but when I saw the amount of progress, I would get determined again to keep on fighting.

Once again came the assessment day! And we had to get Noyan’s progress checked. His eye contact had reached a great point. He would completely respond to call outs and he was obedient.

With the Doctor’s discretion, without taking any classes, my son was completely out of the autism spectrum disorder, that day was one of the best days of my life, and Doctor Pouretemad was like a God- sent angle that helped my son recover.

 

Online educational programs of Tehran Autism Center during the Corona outbreak

The outbreak of coronavirus has long stopped the education and rehabilitation of children with autism, and it is unknown when will this crisis be over.

Since continuing education and rehabilitation is one of the main factors in the treatment of autism, the Center for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Autistic Disorders has organized and provided online (non-face-to-face) education for children and their parents so that the process of rehabilitation and treatment continues on a daily and continuous basis.

 

 

The center has also provided short-term training programs through which parents can perform some emotional training and rehabilitation programs at home in addition to maintaining emotional interaction and connection. The online training programs “Emotional Transplantation and Continuous Tension in Corona Stress” (Patak) is one of these courses.

In addition to the points mentioned, Tehran Autism Center offers another part of its services online during this period. You can visit this page to see the list of these services.