Friday, February 22, 2008

Sm Supermalls support Autism Sectors

The SM Supermalls Accessibility Committee, in cooperation with National Council for the Welfare of Disabled Person (NCWDP), Autism Society of the Philippines (ASP), Autism Pinoy (AP) and Philippine Association of Behavioral Analysis (PABA) conducted a seminar about autism at SM Mall of Asia recently.

The seminar themed "Recovering from Autism: An inspiring talk on a mother's fight to free her child from Autism" featured Ms. Annabel Stehli as the guest speaker, together with her daughter Georgiana. The seminar was attended by different autism sectors and parents of autistic children.

Ms. Stehli talked about how she was able to free Georgiana from autism when she discovered she is autistic. She was unable to speak and remained a silent child. She feared that Georgiana is destined for a desolate future. But, Ms. Stehli never gave up. She did everything to cure her daughter until she found this innovative therapy, Auditory Integration Training (AIT). After receiving AIT, Georgiana was able to change from autistic to a normal person. AIT really helped her to enjoy communication and to excel in school.

AIT corrects sensitivity through concentrated music therapy, which is played at different frequencies for 30 minutes, 2 times a day for 10 days. The frequency from music manipulates the brain and thus, it reduces painful hearing and allows the brain to understand the sounds better. Sounds are important in therapy because auditory, which is a sensory distortion, are common in autistic children and it is the cause of different autistic behavior. Not only autistic children can benefit from AIT but the other children who suffers from other learning and development disorder.

Ms. Stehli is the founder of Georgiana Institute. She is credited for promoting AIT to the world. She presented 2 books that depict stories about autism in the seminar. The book, "The sound of a miracle: A child's triumph over Autism" showed Georgiana's childhood and recovery from autism. Her other book, "Sounds of Falling Snow: Children's stories of recovery from Autism and related disorders" consists of personal stories of the parents whose children recovered from autism with the help of AIT.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hello,

i admire the courage of all the people behind this great event. Unfortunately, i was not able to hear about it.

im also a mother of a 10 yr.old child with autism. i've learned about AIT several years ago but we couldn't afford it since it was not available here in the Phils. but if there's any practitioner of AIT in manila that you could recommend, please let me know and i would highly appreciate it.

irene