James' story

James suffered with migraines from the time he was 12 months old, being sick several times a day and struggling to cope as he developed, as the early years passed he started to display varying degrees of worrying behaviour.

By the time James was 6 yrs old, he was having difficulty with his mobility, special awareness, co-ordination, speech, language, reading, writing, social skills and memory. He would trip over his own feet, walk into doors, struggle to communicate his needs, hide in the corner at play group and forget how to use a knife and fork.

Something as simple, as brushing his teeth had to be re-taught on a daily basis. We felt he was going backwards instead of forwards.

James was also becoming violent towards other children and started to self harm; his self esteem became very low as he found it difficult to keep up with his peers in sports and class, becoming more anxious about daily things, developing fears and phobias.

As time went on we realised that the migraines were brought on by his sensitivity to light, noise and touch. Several years of being passed from pillar to post within hospital departments failed to achieve anything other than destroying what self esteem he had and bringing us to near desperation.

Throughout this time we had researched James’ challenges and established in our own minds that he was touching on the Autistic Spectrum Disorder. We changed his diet when he was 8 yrs old and saw a marked improvement in his behaviour.

When he was 10 yrs old he was diagnosed as Aspergers, with dyslexia, dyspraxia and Irlen syndrome, although this did not bring any immediate worthwhile help and a Statement of educational needs was unattainable. Then we came across B.I.R.D. and everything started to change.

We took James to the initial assessment and were surprised at how deep rooted many of his problems were and that the possible causes could be traced back to his early development.

The initial assessment felt as though someone had switched on a light and we could finally see why James had struggled for ten years.

Being autistic, it was a relatively easy step to get James to do the exercises in his daily routine. All the exercises were simple and easy to do without causing any stress.

As a result, James has come on in leaps and bounds, he has shown vast improvements in his co-ordination, mobility, speech, reading, writing, and his self esteem has improved massively as he is now keeping up with his peers in many areas.

James is developing well in school, he has formed some close friendships amongst his peers and was recently awarded distinction level certificates for many of his subjects.

It has been a long road so far and we know that we have a way to go yet, but, thanks to B.I.R.D. there is increasing hope for his future.

Colin & Sam