May 24, 2024, Irish Independent: ‘He has never said a word and is about to start school, there’s just no help’ – mum on battle for autistic son (4)
When Jodie Reid’s son Kaylen (4) was diagnosed with autism and a developmental delay in November 2022, she thought her little boy would finally get the help he needed to learn how to speak, or to even communicate with her.
However, a year-and-a-half later, both she and Kaylen’s father, Jack (24), are still waiting for their son to receive any treatment.
VIDEO:
A mother talks about her son with severe autism with no school place.
We have our 4 year old son, Kaylen, who has been diagnosed with autism, global development delay. He’s currently non-verbal. We’ve been trying to get services for Kaylen for the last two years, and we are being let down ever since.
We’re trying our hardest for getting him services that he needs like speech and language, occupational therapy.
We know he can make such good progress if he was given the chance. Nobody seems to help us or wants to help us. I don’t know, because there is no currently services available.
Kaylen is nonverbal, though he was a range of capabilities. He is the size and has activeness of a 4 year old boy. He’s able to run around. He’s able to play in the park. He’s able to play in soft play centers and sensory rooms. He likes a lot of rough and tumble play. He likes being thrown around the place.
He’s a very affectionate boy, very, very affectionate. He loves to give cuddles, he loves to give hugs. He’s a visual learner, I’ve recently realized.
Kaylen learns a lot by being shown how to do things. That’s why, I believe, with the right help and being shown, Kaylen can be up to speed in his development and his skills.
At the moment the last thing that we were left with was that he is nonverbal, and he has a severe expressive and receptive language delay, which means what he puts out and what he puts in.
So we sat down and we’ve tried to teach him sign language. It’s really not gone too well because we don’t know what he takes in when we’re talking to him.
Currently, we’re just left in the dark on what we can do for Kaylen or what somebody else can help us to do.
We as a family are appealing to Simon Harris, the new Taoiseach, for help for our son, Kaylen for services that we desperately, desperately need, that we deserve.
As Simon Harris should know better than anyone, with a brother with autism, how hard it can be to get services, and that’s why we are appealing to him for help for our family because Kaylen desperately needs it.
Harris is the eldest of three siblings. His brother is autistic and runs the autism services charity AsIAm, which Simon Harris co-founded.
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