May 17, 2007
Bringing hope to autistic kids
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On his way to completing a second master’s degree in elementary education, Steven Freedman was closer to fulfilling his dream of becoming a teacher. However, a series of what he calls “strange coincidences” found Freedman heading up a clinic rather than a classroom.
“I figure the classroom will always be there and I can always do that, but I love doing this,” said Freedman, director of the Sensory Training Institute, which opened last October at 745 Post Road. “I feel I was led here for a reason and I’m totally accepting of that.”
An injury is what initially led him to Dr. Brian McKay, who knew Freedman was out of work until he started student teaching and who was looking for someone to run the institute he founded to focus specifically on an alternative treatment for children and adults with autism, Attention Deficit /Hyperactive Disorder, Asperger’s Syndrome, developmental delays, acquired brain injury, birth trauma and other sensory integration issues.
“As much as I could help kids in a classroom, I knew I could help more with this center,” Freedman said. “So I said let’s give it a try.”
For the past eight months, he has been administering an intervention regime called sensory learning, which simultaneously uses the three most commonly used therapeutic modalities (light, sound and motion) to help the brain process the information it receives through these senses.
First, the patient lies on a moving table that administers gentle, precise patterns of circular movement that moves the fluid in the middle ear. As the motion occurs, a stationary light box provides visual stimulation for the eye muscles and earphones deliver modulated music.
The 12-hour treatment is delivered over the course of three to four weeks with each session lasting 30 to 60 minutes. After this, an additional 12 hours of follow-up treatment is conducted over the next four months to “lock in” the changes that will hopefully allow the patient to perceive the world and sense motion, balance, gravity, light and sound in a new way.
“This can help a child’s performance in school, their ability to learn new things and even help them learn autonomous behavior,” Freedman said. “The first boy I ever saw can now dress himself, prepare his own food and is much more calm at home and in school. He was switched from a vocational to an academic track because he became too high-functioning to be on the vocational track. That just blows me away.”
His 10-year-old daughter, who has an auditory processing disorder and ADHD, and Dr. McKay’s teenage son, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, have both undergone sensory learning therapy, which was devised by Mary Bolles, an occupational therapist from Boulder, Colo., 15 years ago. Currently, the Sensory Training Institute is one of about 15 centers in the country and the only one in Connecticut offering the treatment.
“Parents come here after they’ve tried everything else and spent tons of money,” Freedman said. “This gives them hope.”
So far, about 20 people have had the treatment, which Freedman said should be used with their other therapies in order to further strengthen a patient’s ability to learn and comprehend. Most of the patients are children, half of whom suffer from autism.
“Autism is a blazing fire right now,” Freedman said. “It’s where we can really make a marked life change in children’s and adults’ lives.”
Being able to see the improvements first-hand has him “loving what I do.”
“I’m having the time of my life,” Freedman said. “This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done because I see kids leaving here and I get calls from parents saying their kids went from an F to a B minus — and it’s directly attributed to the work here.”
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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