If there’s an autistic child in your life, you’ve no doubt searched for answers and still have many unanswered questions.
Answers About Autism, a free seminar being held in Santa Monica this Saturday, Nov. 12, is an opportunity to get many questions answered by people who truly know.
It will be held at 11 a.m. at the Santa Monica Public Library in the Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium at 601 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica.
The featured speaker will be John Hall, author of “Am I Still Autistic?: How a Low-Functioning” and “Slightly Retarded Toddler Became CEO of a Multi-Million Dollar National Corporation”
The moderator of the event will be Bonnie Z. Yates, an attorney who specializes in working with the families of children with special needs, know whereof they speak.
At two years of age, Hall was diagnosed as being severely autistic and slightly mentally retarded.
Subsequently, as a patient of Dr. O. Ivar Lovaas, he received more than four years of applied behavior analysis.
Hall attributes this treatment to overcoming the bleak prognosis his parents were given when he was initially diagnosed… that he might one day be able to hold a menial job, such as an assembly-line worker, but that he’d never be able to live unassisted.
Additionally, both Hall and Yates have sons who are autistic.
When Hall’s son, John R. Hall IV, a.k.a. JR, was diagnosed with autism at 14 months of age in 2007, the elder John’s life was shattered. He sobbed as their neurologist handed down his son’s diagnosis. At that moment, he experienced the same sense of hopelessness that most parents do when they receive such news.
And there was so much more. He immediately thought of the hurt, pain, loneliness he felt growing up, how hard it was to learn how to look at people and to communicate with them, how scary it all was and how the entire experience follows him to this day.
He was heart broken that their son would be relegated to have the same experiences.
Reservations are recommended and may be made by calling 310.204.6624 or emailing
Jennifer@bonniezyates.com.
