Gregory’s story

Through a Father’s Eye

 My son Gregory is 6 years old. In 2006 he was diagnosed with Autisum Spectrum Disorder (ASD).  At first my wife and I were in the dark about what to do. But having married a Spartan, my wife Demetra got the ball rolling very fast.

 Gregory was 2 1/2 when the diagnosis took place and that's when our lifetime battle for him began. As Demetra did her research we were moving from Toronto to Durham Region. When she searched for Gregory’s diagnosis in Durham it led us to Grandview Children’s Centre and ever since then (2007) Grandview has been a big part of our lives.

 Gregory has received Occupational Therapy, Speech Language Pathology, Sensory Integration and participates in the Recreation Program, his favourite recreations activity is swimming!!! Swimming has helped him be water tolerant.

 Since coming to Grandview Gregory went from being totally non-verbal to saying a few words and has changed his temper when interacting with other children, it has been baby steps but this boy is a fiesty fighter! He tries to help himself and hasn't stood still since the day he was diagnosed. I see a constant change in him after the therapists work with him. He is like a sponge, he sucks all the learning in and our family couldn’t be more satisfied with his progress.

 When Gregory was 4 we put him in horseback riding, at 5 he joined the Oshawa Challenge League were he plays the beautiful game in English… SOCCER!!! Which leads me to the first of the two major accomplishments Gregory has achieved. At one of his soccer games I was video taping him with my cell as he kicked the ball into the net. I added special effects while screaming GOALLLLLL! Every time he scored just to see if he would react to my screaming, at the time he was non-verbal.  So as I screamed he turns around looks at me hands in the air screams GOALLLLLL! and does on a victory lap! I was so excited I posted the video on You Tube and to this day we have over 2000 hits, check it our by clicking here.

 A few days later I bumped into a reporter for CBC news and asked him to check my boy out on YouTube within hours he got back to me and made Gregory  apart of a great story on CBC news called, “A League of Their Own”. Please click here to check out the story, it is a must see! I just wanted the world to see what Our Kids can do!

 Gregory’s second accomplishment was this summer when he attended 5 day seminar on video game designing for computers! My wife and I thought it maybe far fetched for him but we gave it a shot because Gregory loves video games and computers. Gregory was the only 6 year old in his class, all the other kids were 14 and up. But at the end of the seminar he brought home a hard disk of a game he created with cars!

All of Gregory’s accomplishments give us hope for Gregory’s future our long term goal with Gregory is to help him to become as self dependent as possible and enjoy his life! Grandview has been a huge part of Gregory’s progression in life and my family and I cannot thank everyone involved in Gregory’s therapy enough without your help he wouldn’t have been able to achieve his accomplishments.

 If you can find the time please check out Gregory’s You Tube video, I am so proud of him!

Thank you,

 Achilles, Demetra, Gregory  and Anastasia