This year, the AEIOU Foundation is celebrating a 'Decade of Difference' - ten years of making a difference to the lives of children with autism through our early intervention program. Isaac Driessen is one of these children ...
Isaac Driessen, featured in AEIOU’s first television commercial broadcast in 2010, when he was five. The commercial showed how early intervention can help ‘break the bubble’ of autism. Isaac’s mother, Lisa, tells of Isaac’s world before attending AEIOU and how Isaac is going now at the age of 11.
Hello, I’m Isaac Driessen’s Mum, Lisa, and this is my account of my son prior to early intervention - when our life was masked with routine, isolation and uncertainty.
Isaac was the most beautiful looking little boy, his distinct eyebrows framed his beautiful blue eyes - eyes that mesmerised you but Isaac loved nothing more than being in his own world.
His favourite activities were holding his palms close to his face, gazing at them almost in wonder – as he'd rotate them to look at the backs of his hands; with concentration and fascination across his face.
Isaac also loved straight surfaces and would run his eyes along a table top or kitchen bench. Opening his mouth he would clench his fists to contain the excitement this would bring him.
When Isaac arranged things his way, everything he changed was not to be touched or moved. Like when he'd play with our pegs , only the blue ones though, he would line them up in perfect lined formation.
Change also impacted Isaac, while driving my eldest son to school one day I turned left at the round-about instead of our usual right, this simple change caused Isaac to scream like he was in physical pain. He knew we were going a different way, and he was so upset; screaming and thrashing around in his car seat as he looked back to where we should have been going.
Not knowing what was wrong with my little boy, I started to drive home different ways, trying to "cure" him of this behaviour. I would cry as I did, wondering what was wrong with my little boy. What did I do wrong? Why was he so disconnected from me? I loved him, but I didn’t know him.
Before autism the world "melt-down’’ had no real significance to me, it's meaning was solely to describe the melting of a nuclear-reactor core as a result of a nuclear accident. I have often thought how appropriate the word is – Isaac did at times go off like an atomic bomb. It would not matter where we were or who we were with.
My grandmother who was visiting from Sydney commented to me, “Have you noticed Lisa, Isaac never looks at you when he runs to you? He looks to the side but never at your face." Until she said that I had never noticed this before. It was just one of his many funny little quirks.
That is when I started noticing Isaacs’s eyes, although beautiful, were evasive, secretive and vague. I also noticed Isaac ran on his toes - something I thought was rather cute. Never thinking to connect the two - eye contact and toe walking - to a neurological diagnosis.
My daughter, Bella, had an Auditory Visual Therapist (AVT) who'd visit us monthly for Bella’s hearing impairment. The AVT commented one day that in the ten months she had seen Bella, Isaac had made very little progress developmentally. She suggested Isaac attend a part time intervention unit.
He attended the centre twice a week and the mornings he would go resulted in him holding onto their gates and screaming, pulling my hair and scratching me. He didn’t want to be there and would wet his pants as I carried him inside. It tore my heart apart. I was so confused as a diagnosis was never discussed with my husband or myself and we had no idea what was wrong.
"I knew I needed to find something else for Isaac, something more than twice a week."
But first I needed to accept that my son, as well as my daughter, were not born the way I had planned they would be. Looking back, I think that was the reason it took me so long to have Isaac diagnosed. I wasn't ready to ‘walk the walk’ as I had for the past five years with Isabella. It was one of the hardest times in my life. Not only did I have a daughter with Turner Syndrome, who was gradually losing her hearing, at the same time I felt I was losing my little boy as well. This wasn't supposed to happen to us and accepting that was very difficult.
After relaying to my girlfriend Isaac’s obsession with table tops and benches and how a blade of grass amused him more than his cars or blocks, she asked me if I thought Isaac might have Asperger’s syndrome. I’d never heard of it. The next day, in a bookshop, I flicked through the pages of a book on ASD. I didn’t know if this was definitely what Isaac had, but the penny totally dropped.
Sitting at the Paediatrician’s office, the Doctor watched Isaac. He'd seen him on many occasions from when he'd treat my daughter. My eyes followed the Doctor’s gaze and I saw my little boy go from object to object, display to display. In the forty minutes we were there Isaac didn’t even bother acknowledging the doctor.
"Isaac does not have Asperger’s Lisa," he paused. "He has autism".
I looked at the paediatrician and all I could manage to say was, "What?"
It didn’t make sense, not yet anyway. What did this all mean for my little boy? Autism sounded so final. Isaac didn't have autism! I remember looking at Isaac later that afternoon and through my tears I knew I needed to find something to help him and in the next three days I found a full time early intervention centre specialising in children with autism, AEIOU.
Isaac blended in with the other children even on his first visit to the centre. I can still remember looking at him and thinking, Isaac has autism, surely not him as he played in the sand pit ALONE, even though there were two other children playing next to him.
After a few months of attending AEIOU, I noticed Isaac’s personality emerge; he was developing things he liked, not just disliked. For the first time Isaac could finally participate in our family's life.
"AEIOU’s early intervention program unlocked Isaac from his own world, while the therapy he accessed there gradually allowed him to become the boy he is today."
His memories of AEIOU are happy ones and he still uses some aspects of the program today, like breathing techniques. While I was lost driving in the city, and stressing, he reminded me to "smell the flower and blow out the candle". Such a simple concept but one he continues to use to this day if he feels overwhelmed.
The Jolly Phonics program at AEIOU introduced Isaac to reading and writing, two areas he thrives at and loves today. Today, although Isaac still deals with some aspects associated with ASD, in comparison our life is much more relaxed to what we endured in the earlier years.
I will be forever grateful to the staff at AEIOU Toowoomba; Diane, Debbie, Sandy, Sally and Rilda. AEIOU provided information; support and resources that helped me understand Isaac. That understanding enabled me to learn, and get to know my little boy from a different perspective.
Isaac’s graduation was one of the happiest and proudest moments of all of our lives. We were so grateful he was able to move on to mainstream schooling. Isaac is now in Grade 5 and does very well academically. He still has speech therapy for the social communication elements of speech, like understanding sarcasm, and he’s learning not to take things too literally. Isaac still needs social-emotional support but is now better at regulating his emotions and learning to advocate for his needs. At lunch times he plays soccer a couple of days a week but also likes to go to a quiet place in the school to have time by himself when he knows he needs some time out to regulate his nervous system.
Today, Isaac is a friendly, clever little boy with a very dry sense of humour. He follows the NRL and barracks for the Rabbitohs. Isaac loves to YouTube everything from Pokemon, to how our food is broken down during digestion. He's still the same boy I would line blue pegs up with years ago but today, we don't line those blue pegs up anymore. Instead we play board games; we lay on the lounge together watching cartoons. We argue about homework and we lay in bed at night listening to the pianist, Yiruma's ‘Kiss in the Rain’ and River Flows in You’, two of his favourite pieces of music. All the things other parents take for granted, but to us they mean the world.
Somewhere today, there are a mother and father whose child has just been diagnosed with autism. They need to have hope their child will be able to access full time early intervention no matter what their income, so their son or daughter has the same opportunity as my Isaac. So one day their child, too, will play a part in mainstream society.
AEIOU works miracles for young children and their families. This will sound clichéd but AEIOU saved our family, it saved my sanity. The therapy Isaac obtained at AEIOU has been vital in giving him the very best possible chance in mainstream schooling and in society. Like a house needs a good foundation to be strong and sturdy, AEIOU has been Isaac’s foundation to living his best life.
By Lisa Driessen
Come and join us on our 10 year Anniversary page for more family stories and a timeline of our milestones and achievements celebrating AEIOU's Decade of Difference.
You can also help celebrate AEIOU's 10 year anniversary at our 'Time to Shine' Masquerade Gala Ball on Saturday 30 May at Brisbane City Hall.
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