Extreme Makeover Home - AS family

['Chelle]

Anyone watch this episode on Sunday? The family from Texas (Austin?) has 6 kids, 5 of which have been diagnosed on the spectrum. They wanted a large family. When their oldest daughter was diagnosis'd they were told there was no genetic link to having autism, so they had their big family. The oldest (15) and the youngest (5) are diagnosis'd classic severe autism, and along the way the others have been diagnosis'd Aspergers and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified. The dad works 2 jobs, home just on weekends pretty much, and the mom takes care of the kids. Because of all the expenses etc.(I know we all experience those with our kids and therapies etc) they were on the verge of foreclosure on their home. I don't know, but I thought they were considering genetic links 13 years ago, but maybe this was just starting to be considered. They seem to have done a great job raising the kids, I know how I struggle with just mine. I felt sorry for the one girl who wasn't AS. A lot of chaos to grow up in, she seemed very mature for her age. Home Makeover did a fundraiser and raised 200,000 to pay off their mortgage and built them a fantastic home. Very happy for them. Knowing my Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kid I did wonder how long the house would look so fantastic :blush:, sometimes so hard to keep anything nice when my kid had issues and things started flying and walls/doors got hit by various body parts.

Good luck to them. :salute:

 

[amstrong]

I saw it and it was really heart warming! The girl who is not AS was like you said really mature but she just looked so worn out, as I am sure she is.

I was truly impressed how the team tried to address each childs specific needs and quirks when designing their rooms

That show always makes me cry.