18/03/2025
What a heartwarming treat to receive this email from a previous client - next year our OT practice will be celebrating 20 years of service to this community and it's emails like these that keep us motivated and going! Thanks for sharing your reflections with us and allowing us to share it with others to encourage them on their journey with OT!
*personal information has been omitted for privacy reasons!
Dear Lourdes
Hope you and your family are well.
You may not recall us as this was a long time ago, but I wanted to email you today.
I brought my son to be assessed at around age 3 when you were still in Blaauwberg Road, and my husband was convinced I had been reading too many books but came to trust my Mother Bear instinct 100% thereafter. I was an older Mom and previously a high school teacher. We discovered my son’s Sensory Processing Disorder. My son was born with urinary reflux so potty training had some challenges when he started school at age 3.
We have reached a huge milestone as a family, and we wanted you to know how grateful we are for contributing to this. My son completed his matric and now has started doing an IT degree.
I recall the meetings at his school with the psychologist and yourself helping the staff to better work with my son because at that time Sensory Processing Disorder was not widely understood in mainstream teaching; and to check on my son’s behaviour and function in the classroom.
The Sensory course that you sent my husband and I on for his SPD was the most life changing thing we have ever done. The knowledge and understanding it gave us as parents was priceless and set the tone for our parenting and our support of our son. Our son was further diagnosed with dyslexia and ADD, he moved from his mainstream school in grade two to a remedial school and takes Ritalin medication. Further as a teenager he was diagnosed with other physical challenges. So, he has had a busy journey so far.
When the other children were loving sports day, but we had moments of fun but also meltdowns to our son later loving sport. Our son takes a ball everywhere he goes, even through high school and I asked him why he always insists on taking a ball. And he said because it was a great way to meet people and engage, wise words! From taking our own food for our son to parties or where we went till about the age of seven, going from a fussy eater to being a young man who literally will try any food and eats far more healthily than his cousins. To ignoring the noise from others. We now can laugh about the fact we peeled Vienna sausages! From the awesome brushing over the years to the many fun toys and balls and still lots of blankets today. Learning to leave the party strong and not stay when our son was going to become overwhelmed. Arriving at my nephew’s 6th birthday on a farm and getting our son out the car, the farm smell completely overwhelming at the time, so getting straight back into the car to go home! For taking years to want to go to the beach and years before wetting our face to loving nature and completing a scuba diving indoor pool course at age 9; with the goal of free diving soon now that he is 18 !
Smell was the hardest sensitivity to change! But he can now tolerate!
All of the above was made possible because we as parents would learn to nurture our son’s unique experience and understand Sensory Processing Disorder. This was the foundation for our family engagement and taught to be better parents at a crucial time of our son’s development.
We just wish to share our thanks and sincere gratitude from the bottom of our hearts for all the work you and Jill have done. It truly matters.
Best wishes
The ###x Family
