Desmond Logue - 5 years old
Desmond (or Desi as we call him) was diagnosed at 18 months old. His older sister also has ASD and so we moved quickly (paying out of pocket) to have him diagnosed as soon as we saw any concerns. We were lucky as there is this really great local program offering 12 weeks of consultative therapy/parent training available for kids who are diagnosed very young and we were so happy to start that with him before his 2nd Birthday. Knowing that there was a long wait ahead and fearful that Desi seemed to be more on the severe side of ...
Ruby was diagnosed with ASD the week of her 3rd Birthday after having waited 15 months for an assessment at our local children's hospital. It shouldn't have been a shock but yet it still was. We were 8 months pregnant with Ruby's brother at the time so it was a busy time. We surged ahead with the mountain of paperwork and made sure she was on all the lists. We also enrolled her in Nursery school right away which was something she had never done. While that was ultimately a good primer for school for her it was all of ... 
This is Daniel. He is 8 years old. At the time of his diagnosis, at age 3, he was non verbal, non engaged, exhibited self harming and aggressive behaviours , had feeding, self regulation and sensory issues and was a flight risk with no sense of inherent danger. Life was difficult and bleak.
In 2016, after a 2.5 year wait for IBI services, the Liberal government removed him from the wait list , as part of their “over 5 years old” initiative. We advocated for the return of those services we had long waited for. We were parents desperately in ... 
