After struggling for 3 years with infertility and countless procedures I was blessed with a son on 27 July 1990.  After a relatively normal childhood he started to struggle as a 6 year old and displayed odd and disturbing behaviour.  After a term in grade 1 he was expelled from main stream education and was placed in a unit for problem children.  I had to come to terms with the fact that my precious boy was different.

 He was diagnosed in the autistic spectrum and was placed in a school for autistic children.  He only stayed there for 2 terms because he was functioning too high for that school. 

 To place him in main stream education was very difficult, because no school wanted to take him.  Luckily a new private school opened and they took him in, in 1998.  Throughout his primary school years he was an outsider, with tantrums and often anti-social and weird behaviour.  He had no friends and was never invited to parties or play dates.

 He also has attention deficit disorder and took medication, with good results, for 4 years.  He received therapy from all specialities and sometimes it really did not seem to help at all!

 Since going to high school he has progressed amazingly.  He has been off medication for 5 years and although he is still struggling with his attention, he manages as school. 

 Socially he has improved with leaps and bounds!  He now makes contact with a wide variety of learners in school.  He participated in a pageant, where he strutted his stuff on the runway, was on the Representative Council of Learners, where he had to help organise social events and talk in front of the whole school and he arranged a charity event for a children's home, where he had to seek sponsorships from big financial companies. 

 My child, who learns differently, is now in matric and plan to study LLB next year.

 Throuhout his life my son was in God's hands.  His grace to me and my son was always enough and he sent angels along the to guide us. 

 Because I have been blessed with this wonderfull and still complex young man, I researched and read everything there was on children that are different.  This is how I came accross NILD.

 I did my level I training in 2000 and even though I was an occupational therapist, with experience in psychiatry, this was all new and very exciting.  A whole new world opened up for me about children who learn differently.

 I have since been working full time as a NILD educational therapist in schools with children from pre-primary to grade 12.  This is not a program that promises miracles, cures or quick fixes.  It is a scientifically based program that helps students manage their difficulties and that stimulate deficit areas.  

 Through the years I had wonderfull successes, but also students that did not do so well.  It takes hard work from everybody involved to make this work - student, parents, therapist and teachers.  But it is worth your while!

 One of the most important roles as a therapist is to educate teachers and everybody involved with the child.  With inclusive education these children get dumped in systems that are not prepared for them and teachers that don't know what to do with them.  After preparing teachers and giving them information, they are better equiped and more prepared to help these children.

 My other important role is to support parents of children, who are different.  It is very hard to accept that your child is not the same as everybody else's.  It is a loss that you have to come to terms with and parents often struggle with that.  Because I have been down that road, I have empathy, but also hope for them.

NILD has helped me make sense of my own suffering with my son and has helped me to lend a helping hand to others that feel that they are drowning.

Santie Smit

Occupational Therapist / NILD Educational Therapist / NILD Instructor