NACD Client Testimonials (full articles)
It is natural for parents to feel concerned about how to help their children live fulfilling lives. Parents of children with special needs have additional concerns. My son, Mark Turner, was nine days old when he became paralyzed due to complications related to a congenital heart defect. He is now 39 years of age and enjoys a very rewarding … Read More
A Testimonial About a Family Helping Each Child Reach Their Full Potential When our son was about four, we took him for a consultation with a well-known pediatric neurologist. Because Ben used just a few words, made little eye contact and showed little interest in other children, the diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) was no surprise, yet … Read More
by Santhi Bhupatiraju, as told to Iliana Clift The shock of the diagnosis was so great that I needed several warm blankets to calm my shivering body. Still waking up from the anesthesia and exhausted from hours of unproductive labor prior to the surgery, I wanted to know about the baby. My husband had begged to tell me the news … Read More
You are my sunshine My only sunshine You make my happy When skies are gray You’ll never know dear How much I love you. Please don’t take My sunshine away How many nights I sang that song to a croupy, wheezing, fussy Sunny. Her arms would fly out, her feet would push off. “Sunny, Sunny, shh, baby.” Colds, allergies, … Read More
Our son turned ten years old in April of 1996. When we started the program through NACD he was a month shy of eight years old. We had run the gamut of trying to find answers for him, suspecting M.D. or another muscular disorder, autism, dyslexia, myopia, also epilepsy. A psychologist diagnosed ADD immediately. He fit the criteria, but one … Read More
“Saying that you can cure dyslexia is like saying that you can cure blue eyes. You either have it or you don’t,” said a recent college graduate with a degree in learning disabilities. My son Brian is living proof that, through God’s grace and the help of NACD, this is not true. As a preschooler, Brian was a happy, busy, … Read More
Our daughter, Jennifer, was born on December 6, 1980, in San Diego, California at 12:45 a.m., with complications. She had swallowed her meconium while she was inside the birth canal, cutting off her oxygen. She, therefore, had an Apgar score of 1 (10 is perfect), and had to be placed in an “isolette” and taken to Children’s Hospital where she … Read More
Gregge Sandusky I would like to introduce myself to you. My name is Gregge and I’m 13 years old (1999) with Autism. When I was around 2 years old I became weird acting. Something began to change in me according to my parents. I became a stranger to my family and had a lot of symptoms such as I quit … Read More
by Sunette Payne, as told to Iliana Clift Elliot was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), which means that the left side of his heart, the side that receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it out to the body, was severely underdeveloped. In addition to this very severe heart defect, he also had a restricted atrial septum, … Read More
as told to Iliana Clift Years ago I hung a quote by the Roman orator Cicero on Marcus’s bulletin board that said, “The greater the difficulty…the greater the glory.” This quote describes our journey with Marcus quite well. When we first started the NACD program, he hardly had any speech at all. He was extremely sensitive to sounds and textures, … Read More