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Hello Everyone,
This is our daughter, Celine…she is just such a special little girl and the bravest person we know!
Celine will be 7 years old this June.
My name is Gabrielle and my husband is Luis, and we are the proud parents of our beautiful little autistic angel, Celine.
Celine has two younger brothers, Robbie aged 3.5 years and Rafael aged 4 months.
Celine was diagnosed with autism at 2.5 years of age due to delayed speech.
We received Celine’s diagnosis when we were 38 weeks pregnant with our son, Robbie.
Unfortunately my second pregnancy, with Robbie was not an enjoyable one, as we were going through the motions of Celine’s ASD diagnosis and we were just devastated and also worried at the same time as expecting a new baby and knew nothing about Autism and how it would change our lives forever.
The thought of our baby girl faced to battle challenges far more difficult than we could have ever imagined was heartbreaking to us, as it would be to any parent.
We welcomed our son, Robbie, a few weeks after Celine’s diagnosis in June 2016 and as of July 2016, we had a plan in place for Celine, so we could help our baby girl develop and flourish.
Celine started both occupational and speech therapy immediately and was receiving 5 sessions per week ie. One daily as well as attending our local pre-school.
We also changed our perspective on food and products we used in our home and still live the same way today as has made a huge impact on Celine.
From July to August 2016, Celine was on the Gluten/Casein Free Diet, which she adapted well to and we notice massive improvements with her digestion and bowel movements.
We then took it one step further and from August 2016 – December, we committed to the GAPS diet, which eliminates both dairy and starch, not just gluten and saw promising results with eye contact. Celine’s eye contact is very good now and we couldn’t be happier with this improvement. As of, January 2017, Celine and the rest of our family, including our son, Robbie, follow a Paleo lifestyle, which we have found very beneficial as well as using only natural, organic products in our home for both self-care and cleaning.
In January 2017 we started a more intensive therapy, than speech and occupational therapy, being ABA therapy. ABA is more intensive as the therapy is provided more frequently ie. 20 hours per week and the sessions are longer, usually 2.5-3 hour sessions.
This was really helping Celine, we were starting to see improvement and in June 2017, Celine started to use single words mainly for requesting her wants & needs eg. Pear, Water, Peppa Pig etc.
Unfortunately due to zero funding from our local disability provider and our limited cashflow, we had to put Celine’s ABA program on hold in November 2017, as the cost of a full service ABA program is over $90k per year.
2018 was a hard year. We were doing a lot of therapy work ourselves, as we had been to so many different therapies and met so many different professionals in their chosen fields, we felt like qualified therapists ourselves. We were working with her on all aspects of life, whether it be communication both expressive and receptive, toileting, self-care, socialisation etc
Celine no longer attended pre-school as the situation just got too difficult and we spent most hours of our days teaching her the best way we knew how.
Celine is now toilet-trained, which we accomplished in at the beginning of 2018, she was 4.5 years of age, except overnight, where she still wears a nappy.
In January 2019, Celine started Kindergarten at our local mainstream primary school, however in a support unit ie. A special class with approximately 5-6 children, all diagnosed with ASD.
Unfortunately after 5 weeks into Term 1, we felt this wasn’t the right situation for Celine as she is difficult to interact and engage with, which makes both teaching and learning difficult and felt she was being left in the ‘too hard’ basket.
As of, March 2019 to now, Celine is home-schooled by myself, which is a huge task, but what I feel is best at the moment for our baby girl.
We are currently on a waiting list for an Aspect School, which is a special school for system for Autistic children, however we have now been on this waiting list for 6 months and are still not guaranteed a place this year…which is frustrating as Celine loves to interact with other children, of course in her own special way, but she does love to get out and be around people..and home-schooling doesn’t offer that experience.
Celine is the most beautiful, caring, loving little girl.
She is vivacious and my husband and I often use the term ‘angelic’.
It saddens us deeply that she cannot express herself due to being non-verbal.
She is very social, however unfortunately does not know how to interact properly with her peers. She has a loving relationship with Robbie and loving her new baby brother, Rafael.
Celine loves music, going to the beach, anything water related, watching Disney movies and anything recreational eg. Going to the park or jumping on a trampoline.
Celine is sadly trapped in her own mind and suffers from anxiety and frustration daily.
Her brother, Robbie, now 3.5, is such a chatterbox and being our second child, amazes us everyday with his knowledge and the usual toddler things he does, however this is not so ‘usual’ to us, it’s more like a miracle, as never experienced this with Celine.
Robbie just started Prep school this year, and has been really enjoying it.
His teacher was very impressed with his kindness towards his fellow peers, especially a special little boy in Robbie’s class named Omar. Omar has down syndrome and Robbie has really taken a liking to him. We are so happy that Robbie has taken on this ever so important quality…as we have always taught him to ‘be kind’…as we hope and wish for Celine to receive kindness throughout her life.
We are currently in a tribunal case with the NDIA due to little funding and hope to acquire more funding for 2020, where Celine may possibly be able to start an intensive ABA program again as we feel she is now more receptive and ‘ready to learn’.
This is a long, tiring and stressful process and unsure what to expect but we have our fingers crossed for a better year in 2020. The case has now been going on for more than a year….lots of lost time that can never be regained. Celine situation is so URGENT now, she is getting older and new challenges are arriving. I find myself awake in the middle of the night thinking and worrying about Celine's future...it is truly terrifying. Celine made beneficial gains from ABA in the past, it is a therapy that does not show benefits for all children, however definitely makes Celine’s brain respond, but unfortunately comes with a hefty price tag.
We are just a typical middle class family; my husband is a transport allocator and I am a stay at home mum, caring for my 3 babies, and home-schooling Celine. The cost of a one year intensive therapy program is $90k, which allows for a team to be working with both my husband and myself to help Celine develop in the best way possible.
The program consists of a weekly 3 hour session in-clinic with a Senior Therapist and 12 x 2 hour daily sessions ie. 2 x 2 hour sessions Monday to Saturday with 2 x Junior Therapists at our home. The program is monitored closely by a Program Supervisor, who is constantly re-evaluating the program with new techniques etc to ensure Celine is reaching her goals and making gains.
Celine may require ABA for several years, however we would like to commit to the therapy year by year and our end goal is to get her ready to hopefully attend a mainstream school one day. We feel this program can help us reach our dream. The costs of this therapy is beyond what we can afford but we will do everything we can to get her this treatment. ABA therapy is not a cure but we truly believe that the therapy will work to offer Celine a happy and functional quality of life…which she truly deserves as we all do.
We have asked for $45k to get this program started, however we are extremely grateful for any donation received...nothing is too small and will go towards helping Celine in some way.
Your donation will contribute to Celine on her journey to recovery and development through ABA therapy. My husband and I appreciate the time you have spent to read Celine's story and we are beyond thankful to donations made to "Celine’'s Journey".
We will leave you with a quote that reminds our family to be thankful everyday and never lose hope:
“Every child is gifted. They just unwrap their packages at different times.”
This is our daughter, Celine…she is just such a special little girl and the bravest person we know!
Celine will be 7 years old this June.
My name is Gabrielle and my husband is Luis, and we are the proud parents of our beautiful little autistic angel, Celine.
Celine has two younger brothers, Robbie aged 3.5 years and Rafael aged 4 months.
Celine was diagnosed with autism at 2.5 years of age due to delayed speech.
We received Celine’s diagnosis when we were 38 weeks pregnant with our son, Robbie.
Unfortunately my second pregnancy, with Robbie was not an enjoyable one, as we were going through the motions of Celine’s ASD diagnosis and we were just devastated and also worried at the same time as expecting a new baby and knew nothing about Autism and how it would change our lives forever.
The thought of our baby girl faced to battle challenges far more difficult than we could have ever imagined was heartbreaking to us, as it would be to any parent.
We welcomed our son, Robbie, a few weeks after Celine’s diagnosis in June 2016 and as of July 2016, we had a plan in place for Celine, so we could help our baby girl develop and flourish.
Celine started both occupational and speech therapy immediately and was receiving 5 sessions per week ie. One daily as well as attending our local pre-school.
We also changed our perspective on food and products we used in our home and still live the same way today as has made a huge impact on Celine.
From July to August 2016, Celine was on the Gluten/Casein Free Diet, which she adapted well to and we notice massive improvements with her digestion and bowel movements.
We then took it one step further and from August 2016 – December, we committed to the GAPS diet, which eliminates both dairy and starch, not just gluten and saw promising results with eye contact. Celine’s eye contact is very good now and we couldn’t be happier with this improvement. As of, January 2017, Celine and the rest of our family, including our son, Robbie, follow a Paleo lifestyle, which we have found very beneficial as well as using only natural, organic products in our home for both self-care and cleaning.
In January 2017 we started a more intensive therapy, than speech and occupational therapy, being ABA therapy. ABA is more intensive as the therapy is provided more frequently ie. 20 hours per week and the sessions are longer, usually 2.5-3 hour sessions.
This was really helping Celine, we were starting to see improvement and in June 2017, Celine started to use single words mainly for requesting her wants & needs eg. Pear, Water, Peppa Pig etc.
Unfortunately due to zero funding from our local disability provider and our limited cashflow, we had to put Celine’s ABA program on hold in November 2017, as the cost of a full service ABA program is over $90k per year.
2018 was a hard year. We were doing a lot of therapy work ourselves, as we had been to so many different therapies and met so many different professionals in their chosen fields, we felt like qualified therapists ourselves. We were working with her on all aspects of life, whether it be communication both expressive and receptive, toileting, self-care, socialisation etc
Celine no longer attended pre-school as the situation just got too difficult and we spent most hours of our days teaching her the best way we knew how.
Celine is now toilet-trained, which we accomplished in at the beginning of 2018, she was 4.5 years of age, except overnight, where she still wears a nappy.
In January 2019, Celine started Kindergarten at our local mainstream primary school, however in a support unit ie. A special class with approximately 5-6 children, all diagnosed with ASD.
Unfortunately after 5 weeks into Term 1, we felt this wasn’t the right situation for Celine as she is difficult to interact and engage with, which makes both teaching and learning difficult and felt she was being left in the ‘too hard’ basket.
As of, March 2019 to now, Celine is home-schooled by myself, which is a huge task, but what I feel is best at the moment for our baby girl.
We are currently on a waiting list for an Aspect School, which is a special school for system for Autistic children, however we have now been on this waiting list for 6 months and are still not guaranteed a place this year…which is frustrating as Celine loves to interact with other children, of course in her own special way, but she does love to get out and be around people..and home-schooling doesn’t offer that experience.
Celine is the most beautiful, caring, loving little girl.
She is vivacious and my husband and I often use the term ‘angelic’.
It saddens us deeply that she cannot express herself due to being non-verbal.
She is very social, however unfortunately does not know how to interact properly with her peers. She has a loving relationship with Robbie and loving her new baby brother, Rafael.
Celine loves music, going to the beach, anything water related, watching Disney movies and anything recreational eg. Going to the park or jumping on a trampoline.
Celine is sadly trapped in her own mind and suffers from anxiety and frustration daily.
Her brother, Robbie, now 3.5, is such a chatterbox and being our second child, amazes us everyday with his knowledge and the usual toddler things he does, however this is not so ‘usual’ to us, it’s more like a miracle, as never experienced this with Celine.
Robbie just started Prep school this year, and has been really enjoying it.
His teacher was very impressed with his kindness towards his fellow peers, especially a special little boy in Robbie’s class named Omar. Omar has down syndrome and Robbie has really taken a liking to him. We are so happy that Robbie has taken on this ever so important quality…as we have always taught him to ‘be kind’…as we hope and wish for Celine to receive kindness throughout her life.
We are currently in a tribunal case with the NDIA due to little funding and hope to acquire more funding for 2020, where Celine may possibly be able to start an intensive ABA program again as we feel she is now more receptive and ‘ready to learn’.
This is a long, tiring and stressful process and unsure what to expect but we have our fingers crossed for a better year in 2020. The case has now been going on for more than a year….lots of lost time that can never be regained. Celine situation is so URGENT now, she is getting older and new challenges are arriving. I find myself awake in the middle of the night thinking and worrying about Celine's future...it is truly terrifying. Celine made beneficial gains from ABA in the past, it is a therapy that does not show benefits for all children, however definitely makes Celine’s brain respond, but unfortunately comes with a hefty price tag.
We are just a typical middle class family; my husband is a transport allocator and I am a stay at home mum, caring for my 3 babies, and home-schooling Celine. The cost of a one year intensive therapy program is $90k, which allows for a team to be working with both my husband and myself to help Celine develop in the best way possible.
The program consists of a weekly 3 hour session in-clinic with a Senior Therapist and 12 x 2 hour daily sessions ie. 2 x 2 hour sessions Monday to Saturday with 2 x Junior Therapists at our home. The program is monitored closely by a Program Supervisor, who is constantly re-evaluating the program with new techniques etc to ensure Celine is reaching her goals and making gains.
Celine may require ABA for several years, however we would like to commit to the therapy year by year and our end goal is to get her ready to hopefully attend a mainstream school one day. We feel this program can help us reach our dream. The costs of this therapy is beyond what we can afford but we will do everything we can to get her this treatment. ABA therapy is not a cure but we truly believe that the therapy will work to offer Celine a happy and functional quality of life…which she truly deserves as we all do.
We have asked for $45k to get this program started, however we are extremely grateful for any donation received...nothing is too small and will go towards helping Celine in some way.
Your donation will contribute to Celine on her journey to recovery and development through ABA therapy. My husband and I appreciate the time you have spent to read Celine's story and we are beyond thankful to donations made to "Celine’'s Journey".
We will leave you with a quote that reminds our family to be thankful everyday and never lose hope:
“Every child is gifted. They just unwrap their packages at different times.”