Family Stories
Our Family Stories
I wanted to express my deepest appreciation for the incredible experience my son had with Acorn. From the very first day, he formed a special bond with Ellie and has made remarkable progress in learning new words and sentences under her guidance. The exceptional bond they share is truly heartwarming. Ellie's expertise as a speech therapist is nothing short of amazing.
Your unwavering support for parents with children with extra needs is truly commendable. The thoughtful planning of new activities for the children, like the memorable Christmas celebration with Santa, made each moment extra special. Witnessing my son's joy and comfort while playing with Santa was a beautiful memory that I will always cherish.
I am immensely grateful to Ellie and the entire Acorn team for their dedication, care, and support in helping my son thrive. Your organisation has made a significant impact on his development, and I cannot thank you enough for being such a positive influence in his life.
With heartfelt thanks,
Gloria
When our boy was 18 months old we began to understand that something was different in his development. The language ability that he had at one year was disappearing and regressed until only some guttural sounds were left. He wouldn’t look us in the face and became obsessed with spinning small hoops. He practised for hours, while our astonishment slowly turned into worry and shock, as we began to realise what this meant. The mix of genes which has produced many gifted and talented women in my wife’s family had expressed as autism in our boy. We had no idea how bad it was going to be and if our boy would ever have a normal life.
We checked his hearing and began to look for options to help. The public system had a 6-month waiting list just to assess him and nothing otherwise to help him. We understood that if we acted quickly while his brain was still developing we had the best chance of helping him learn to communicate and relate to others. This alone would make a tremendous difference to his future prospects. When Acorn came to assess him, they could see the issues without any formal assessment and arranged for a therapy programme to begin when he was 20 months old. We gathered all the resources from our family to pay for as many hours as he could cope with and they could arrange for.
Since this time he has had about 20-22 hours of therapy per week for the past 2.5 years. It has been hugely expensive, but also the best money our family has ever spent. Our boy has gone from making four sounds (and we had to work for those) to asking us questions and playing with others at daycare. It has been a tough journey for him, basically learning to talk like I would learn a foreign language. But just last week he arrived at his age level of speech at 4.25 years old. He also learned to read along the way! On the way, we have tried speech therapy and online methods of helping him. However, the developmental play therapy methods used by Acorn have consistently worked and shown improvements. The therapy delivery by a therapist team, with psychologist oversight of the learning progress, is clearly an effective method of achieving results in a cost-efficient manner.
I want to say that Acorn has made it possible for our boy to live a good life. Where 50 years ago he might have been institutionalised for all his life as “retarded”, he is now going to live a productive and happy life and be no burden at all on society. This is an amazing outcome for him, for us, for our country. We owe everything to Acorn’s approach and dedication. Thank you for giving our boy an ordinary, good life.
Yours faithfully,
Mike
I am writing as the mum of an autistic child and a client of Acorn Autism Charitable Trust to let you know how important Acorn’s services are for my son and our family. My son, Danny, has been working with a speech and language therapist, psychologist and behavioural therapists at Acorn for about six hours a week for the past two years. We came to Acorn because we wanted him to learn how to communicate and to learn how to regulate his emotions so that he wouldn’t be so frustrated. It was painful as a parent to watch our child unable to communicate and struggle, as we felt so helpless. He used to struggle to even look at us when we talked to him and would have big meltdowns. We were always afraid that he would get hurt because he didn’t recognise danger. We were so scared that he would never be able to tell us what he needed. I would have given anything to hear him say “Mum”.
At Acorn we felt understood and valued for the first time. The therapists truly care about my son and enjoy being with him, even on his bad days. They know how to make therapy fun so he wants to learn. He loves going to Acorn! He has learned so much. He has started speaking and has learned important personal safety skills. Overall, he is so much happier and we feel more confident that he is safe. The best thing about Acorn is the people. Acorn is unique due to their “team model” approach. For parents like me, having a well-coordinated team available in one organisation is very important. We feel included in knitting a programme which is appropriate for Danny’s needs.
Each therapist we have worked with or talked to has gone out of their way to support us as a family and to really understand our journey. Acorn really is Danny’s safe place because of the relationships he has there. Acorn’s services are very valuable to us, to help our Danny grow and learn and build his life skills. Even though we have had to ask friends and relatives to help us pay for Acorn’s services, we know how fortunate we are to have this resource. We only wish that all children like our Danny could have access to this life-changing therapy.
Kind regards,
Marilyn