Hi, my name is Myla Musselwhite and my son Sean was a client at WCEL from 1986-1988.

Then it was “Western Center for Early Learning.” It was a wonderful program for him and our family for many reasons. The most obvious reasons were the therapies and teaching that he received.

At that time Sean was diagnosed with congenital hypotonia and speech delays. He attended classes two days a week, with weekly home visits from the speech therapist for help with feeding difficulties. He was extremely orally defensive and he made no beginning speech sounds. We also worked with home visit with the OT (Occupational Therapist) on building his muscle strength because he was so weak.

Along with the other therapies that were so helpful were the bonds formed with the other parents, knowing I wasn’t the only one going through something like that alone. Unfortunately, I have lost contact with them.

Sean started crawling when he was four and walking when he was five, something I wish the staff who worked so hard with him could have seen. He is now 18 years old and attends Ferndale High School where he is enrolled in the Life Skills program. His diagnosis is officially autism, which took some doing to finally get the doctors to pinpoint something. He is generally a happy kid who loves watching his DVD movies and playing his Nintendo games. Although he is still non-verbal he is able to communicate with people who know him well.

(Note: as a result of this letter, WCEL Family Resources Coordinator Julee Johnson and former speech therapist, Jennifer Kurtz, remembered some of the families from that time and are linking interested families. Thanks, Myla, for writing to us!)