Kecia's Biography:

I am a mother of two active boys, ages 11 and 9. My oldest son was diagnosed at age 7 with Aspergers syndrome after many years of seeing multiple doctors for a variety of health issues. He is mainstreamed with accommodations and is doing very well. We started biomedical treatment at age 7 and wish we would have started much earlier! Through the wonderful care of Thoughtful House Center for Children he is making great progress. The most effective treatments for us so far have been Occupational Therapy, a GFCF and Feingold diet, IVIG, MB12, transdermal glutathione, and decreasing his nutritional deficiencies with the use of supplements.

I operate my own small business offering private childbirth education classes, pregnancy belly casting, and birth doula services. For the last 10 years I have worked for local Austin families providing care and support during late pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period. I am also currently attending Clayton College of Natural Health and working towards my Bachelor of Science in Holistic Nutrition. I previously attended the University of Central Oklahoma majoring in Fine Arts and have been married to my wonderful husband since 1995.

My goal is to help families find the support they need and give them hope that autism is treatable! It's important that we all work together to grow awareness, research, funding, and treatment options in order to help our children reach their fullest potential. I look forward to serving the autism community and meeting new friends and families along the way

My Story:

Autism came into our lives when our oldest son was not quite two years old. Although at the time we were unaware of what exactly autism was or how it would affect our lives. It would be many years before the diagnosis was given and we were fully able to wrap our heads around what it meant. My husband and I met in college and got married 9 months later. 3 years later our first son was born. It was a difficult pregnancy and he was born 5 weeks early. The first year was rough; we couldn't leave the house without him coming down with some sort of illness, he had chronic bouts of bronchitis and ear infections. The doctor kept telling us that he was a preemie, give him time for his immune system to mature, by the time he is 3 he'll catch up. Just before he turned two we started noticing little behaviors that seemed odd but he was our first child so we blew it off as 'new parent worry'. He would line up alphabet blocks ...at first randomly and then into words. We would look over to see that he had written 'dinosaur' or 'buzz lightyear'. We were amazed at this ability....but yet there was still that nagging feeling at the back of our minds telling us that a typical child doesn't sit for hours lining up blocks. Shortly after this the obsessions started...first it was Blues Clues. He had to dress as the main character, carrying around a tiny little notebook, and have his mailbox nearby. He would watch the videos repeatedly.

At age 4 we put him into private preschool so that he could socialize with peers his age. The year started off beautifully but the longer it went on the more calls I started getting from the teachers. Have you had him tested for ADHD? He can't sit still, he hyper focuses on things and completely ignores everything else, he has trouble making friends in the classroom, at recess he plays alone...the list went on. Luckily he had a great teacher who was willing to work with him but concern set in for what Kindergarten would bring. In the fall of 2003 he started Kindergarten in our public school district. Academically he did wonderfully....socially was a completely different story. The phone calls from the teacher began early in the year...he was having difficulty with socialization and would have tantrums in the classroom. He would get frustrated and break pencils and throw paper and books. We started getting the 'bad parent' looks from others. We started questioning our parenting style. We had such a loss of hope as we went back to the Pediatrician again. Her advice...take him to a counselor over the summer...he has emotional issues that are causing this negative behavior. We found a Pediatric Counselor that tested him, diagnosed him with a general anxiety disorder, told us to keep his life as stress free as possible, and sent us on our way. I knew there was more...there had to be!

1st grade brought the worst school year of all. I dove into research...if no one else would help I would find out what was going on with our child myself! Then one day I had another mom approach me, she handed me the book "Eating an Artichoke" by Echo Fling. I read it in one night and all fell into place....all of his quirky behaviors were there in the description of Aspergers syndrome. I immediately made an appointment with a local Neurologist. The summer before he entered 2nd grade he was evaluated and diagnosed with Aspergers and Sensory Processing Disorder.

For the following year we researched...we started the Feingold and gluten, casein free diets and then we found Thoughtful House. They care about all aspects of my son's life... how school is going, how social skills are progressing, our concerns, and most important our joys as we see progress. They helped identify the biological reasons behind our son's behaviors and have helped improve his overall health. Each day his GI issues improve and along with it his cognitive functioning and social abilities. I look back at pictures from years past and see a child with no eye contact, dark circles under his eyes, pale skin, and eczema....recent pictures show a child that is fully engaged in his surroundings, with pink cheeks and no dark circles. And eye contact...full, straight on eye contact. While we still have some work to do and some roadblocks to push out of his way we know we are on the right path. Biomedical treatment has brought hope back into our lives and given my son the chance to get well so that he can grow to his fullest potential.

Special Acknowledgements: First of all I want to thank my husband, Jason, who is my rock and the love of my life. I could not have made this journey without you...together we are one for our children and I don't tell you enough what a great father and husband you are. Thank you! I want to thank my youngest son for being a great brother and friend to my oldest son; he doesn't hear that enough and I want it known how much I appreciate his help and understanding. I want to thank my family and friends for always being there for us. Their support is so important to us and I cannot thank them enough for their understanding and compassion as we travel this path. I love you all! I would also like to thank the staff for Thoughtful House for listening to me as a parent and helping my son regain his health after we had been turned away from many other medical professionals that wanted to blame his medical issues on behavior. A special thank you to Lucas Ramirez, Dr. Arthur Krigsman, Dr. Bryan Jepson, Jodi French, and Priscilla Baber for the care they show my son each and every time we visit Thoughtful House. I would like to thank our Occupational Therapist, Terri Cruz-Beck, for treating my son with respect and helping him to overcome many sensory difficulties and social issues. We so appreciate you, Terri! I'd also like to thank Angela Day, our mighty leader and President of NAA Central Texas. You have an amazing amount of energy and fight that is to be admired by us all. And last but not least I want to thank all of those Warrior Moms that have come before me. Thank you for fighting for our children and blazing the path for us all to follow. You are the strongest, bravest Moms I could ever hope to know.

How I am trying to help other families in the journey:

After receiving the diagnosis for your child on the spectrum it's normal to go through so many emotions. You question everything you have done as a parent to determine why and how this could have happened to your child. You research day and night to find a glimmer of hope to help your child get well and you get tired, feel isolated, and your life becomes full of worry for the future. My goal is to help families through this time by offering Hope, local and national resources, and current information on research in areas of effective autism treatments to those families in need. I want to spread the word that Autism is Treatable!

My Current Projects:

My husband, Jason, is working on the following Information Portal:

Portal:

Creating a dynamic content management system that allows groups to create and manage their own portals. This includes registration, logins, administration, and content management including a wiki interface for creating blogs and content items on the fly. Features:

• Full portal with topics and personal pages • Content storage and management (Webpages, Media Files, Blog Posts, etc) • Security and permission (Only authorized see content that is not public) • Calendars and scheduling (Personal schedules and Shared Schedules events and meetings) • Indexing and search

Within this database I hope to continuously add research information for various biomedical treatments and therapies available to help our children. My hope is that it will make it easier for families to do their own research more efficiently this way.

I will be teaching the Catering Workshop portion of the Vocational Summer Sampler on August 3rd-6th. I look forward to working with young adults with autism and teaching them skills in order to run a microbusiness of their own. Subjects covered during the 4 day workshop include:

Introduction to Food Catering

Designing your Menu

Designing Food and Table Presentation

Learn How to Cook for a Dinner Party

Learn How to Cook for an Appetizer and Cake Party

Learn How to Cook for a Picnic



I will be hosting future workshops on implementing the GFCF and Feingold diets. The first one will be Wednesday, November 4th. Watch the newsletter and website for information pertaining to this workshop and future dates.

I am attending the Fall DAN! Conference in October to keep up with the latest research on effective autism treatments and will share my experience here. My goal is to attend at least one national autism conference per year in order to learn from those professionals that are doing the top research for our children.