Help Salena to Reach Her Full Potential

 God blessed us with Salena.  She is a beautiful, smart, and funny 9 year old girl with Autism who has a wonderful opportunity to have a brighter future and a chance to be able to reach her full potential at Brain Balance Achievement Center in Virginia Beach, VA. 
We have been looking for different ways to help our daughter since we were told shortly after her 16 month immunization shots that she was Developmentally Delayed.  After reaching all of her developmental milestones right on time up to using 3 and 4 word sentences, Salena just suddenly stopped talking.  We immediately started with the recommended course of action: speech therapy and early intervention. We had a speech therapist to come to the house and we started Salena in Elementary school at the age of 2 in the early intervention program.  Shortly after being informed that Salena was Developmentally Delayed, we started to notice other issues with her eating and sleeping habits (or lack of sleeping habits…the sleep specialist said she was one of the worse cases he had seen for a child that wasn’t blind).  Every summer we take Salena to the Language, Speech, and Hearing Clinic at Hampton University, and some of the socialization classes, etc. that they offer during the semester.  We have hired tutors and put her in Extended School Year to assist with her math.  We have put her in gymnastics, purchased lots of different books, games, CDs, sensory toys and anything else we could afford to help her in any way we could.  Despite all of our efforts it would still be 4 years before Salena would start talking again and another year to get her potty trained.  Shortly after that we were informed that Salena went from being classified as Developmentally Delayed to a diagnosis of Autism.  Salena still struggles with things like reading comprehension, math, non-verbal communication, expressing her emotions, socially inappropriate behavior, and other social skills.  Autism has really taken an emotional toll on our daughter and our family.  Over the years, we have dealt with Salena’s meltdowns; people looking at us like we are bad parents, us feeling like we are bad parents; all the sleepless nights and tired days; and all the tears, stress, and doubt.  In addition, her brother became jealous and was feeling like we love her more than we love him because she demanded so much of our time, regardless of how much we tried to include him and explain the situation to him.  We also have the heartache and pain of watching our baby girl so desperately wanting friends that she follows them and tries to mimic them to fit in only to end up being made fun of, rejected, or treated like a baby because her social understanding is not on their level.  This has been a difficult journey for all of us, but we would do it all over again for her.  Unfortunately, we know this story is familiar to so many other families going through these same struggles, but now there is hope.
Salena’s Brain Balance assessment revealed that she is right brain weak, that her infant or primitive reflexes are still present, how her vision perception and processing, auditory processing, sense of smell, sensory motor skills, sense of rhythm & timing, and more are underdeveloped in her brain and to what extent.  These are the underlying or root causes of her struggles.  After going over Salena’s assessment they let us know that it will take about 3 to 4 terms (each term is 3 months long) to get her where she needs to be.  The Brain Balance program is designed to target and develop those weak or underdeveloped parts of the brain and properly stimulate them in order to balance the brain, helping to eliminate the struggles that she is having because her brain is too underdeveloped to process information properly.  The other avenues that we have tried have helped to deal with the symptoms of Salena’s Autism, but none of them have even come close to doing what the Brain Balance program will do for her.  We look forward to seeing Salena properly process information and perform at her full potential because her brain is developed, balanced, and functioning properly.  Salena has come a long way, but she still has a long way to go and we believe that the Brain Balance program will be able to develop the underdeveloped parts of her brain that have been holding her back.  Salena is a rising star whose possibilities will be endless now thanks to the Brain Balance program.
Just want to give you a little background on how we found out about the Brain Balance program.  Reading online one day we came across a book called, “Disconnected Kids” by Dr. Robert Melillo.  In the book he said he had cured thousands of children of Autism and other similar disorders with no medication and no surgery, so that caught our attention and we purchased the book.  After reading the book, understanding how the brain of child with these types of disorders function, and the approach Dr. Melillo uses to correct the issues from the root and not just treating or masking the symptoms gave us hope for Salena.  The book really opened up our understanding as to what was going on with Salena and gave us a peek into her world.  After years researching Autism and then researching (over the past 2 years) how the Brain Balance approach differed from other methods we knew we wanted to try Dr. Melillo’s approach.  Dr. Melillo wrote the book, “Disconnected Kids” to give the growing number of parents with children struggling with these types of disabilities understanding, hope, and a chance for those parents who can’t afford to go to the Brain Balance centers a way to help their children.  We were so excited to find out that there was a Brain Balance Center so close to us in Virginia Beach.  This program is expensive, but it is an investment in our little girl and her future.  What this program is offering is not just a game changer, but a life changer…which to us is priceless.  We want her to be all she can be.  

We would be so thankful and grateful for any donations, and even if you can’t donate just spreading the word to others or your prayers for Salena’s success are truly appreciated.  We hope this information will be helpful to others with children, family members, or friends struggling with Autism Spectrum Disorders.  To find out more about Brain Balance go to their website at http://www.brainbalancecenters.com/.

God bless you, thank you for taking the time to read our story and thank you in advance for your support!

Rob and Kris