Autism in the Northern Cape Province in South Africa.

We have an eleven year old daughter who was diagnose with Autism Spectrum Disorder when she was about 5 years old. It came as a big shock to us. At first we did not know what Autism was. We search the Internet and we read and read and we searched.

We moved from a big city to a small Mine Village. That was such a huge change in our lives. Juanre was upset because we took her out of her environment, she adapted.

As a baby she had constant ear and throat infection. Then she had very high fever. So she started to get fever convulsions. Now she has to live with Epilepsy. But we cope.

When she was 6 years we took her to the Primary school, and at first it went well, but the teacher who is a wonderful teacher did had the knowledge of Autistic children and how to work with them.. So after the third term we took her out because she was bothering the other children.

Sad to say she stayed at home with the maid. In June 2008 we took Ruben to a Neurologist and he what we already suspected. He was also Autistic but in a very mild way. His speech was very bad. He repeats everyting he says a thousand times.

In April 2008 the UN declared 2nd April an international World Autism Awareness day. I used the opportunity to write in our local news papers about the Awareness day, I also wanted to know if there were any other children in our community who has Autism. No respond. Only 1 grandmother in the Old Age Home phoned me and told me her daughter who lives in Australia has a little boy with ASD. I send an email to her and we became friends. Later on I heard about other mothers with child with ASD and emailed them and so we started to embrace each other. But not one of them are close to our town.
In October 2008 we bought a house and the Christian School in our town said to us that they wanted to start a Special Needs Classroom, and ask if we were interested. We said yes because we needed to give Juanre some type of education or stimulation. Ruben was in a main stream school but we saw that I was battling alot. So we put him also in the Special Needs Class, and the Lord provided a wonderful wonderful teacher for them. She is really sent from God.

Now the 2 of them with 2 Down syndrome children are in Milla’s Class, and the results are amazing.

My husband and I helped sending Milla to SNAP (Special Needs Adapted Program) in Durbanville, Cape Town, South Africa. And she says that, that was an eye opener for her. She enjoyed herself so much and she learned so much now she is using those techniques on our children with amazing results.

We are so thankful for her.