Thankful to the Aide that Made a Difference

This November I am thankful for the aide that made a difference in my son’s life. The aides that work with our kiddos definitely don’t get the thanks they deserve.

A little bit about our family…My husband Gary and I have been married for 12 years. We met working as Firefighters.

I am now a stay at home mom and advocate for our son Andrew. Gary is a full time firefighter/paramedic along with a councilperson for the Village we reside in.

We have twins who recently turned 9 years old. Andrew is non-verbal and was diagnosed on the autism spectrum at 18 months old. His sister Addison is typical with no delays.

Andrew also has three adult siblings (Gary Jr., Phil, and Nicole), a nephew (Joey), and a niece (Eve). Our life is definitely interesting and busy!

We are thankful for our family and friends who are always willing to lend a hand helping with Andrew and Addison.

We don’t let Autism stop us from getting Andrew out into the community and taking him everywhere we go.

Do people stare? Of course.

Do they make comments about his iPad (electronic device)? Of course.

However, we don’t let it stop us. We have a Facebook page called Andrew’s Heroes. We host a shopping fundraiser yearly that raises money for The Autism Society of Greater Akron.

Around 14 months old Andrew stopped waving, clapping, and making eye contact. He had his well child visit with his doctor and was referred to a pediatric neurologist.

Once Andrew was diagnosed at 18 moths old we got him into speech therapy, occupational therapy, and he started working with our county program, Help Me Grow. He was in a case study through play at Case Western University. He was in a trial study through University Hospitals in Cleveland. We also traveled to Michigan for some testing while in the study.

When Andrew turned 3 years old he started in our county integrated preschool program held at our local elementary school. He then began kindergarten and is currently in third grade. He has always been in the mainstream classroom with aide support.

He enjoys school and loves being around his peers. His favorites at school are PE, Speech, and OT.

Every new year of school brings new challenges and stresses.

How is he going to handle the change in classrooms, teachers, classmates, and schedules? What new behaviors are we going to see?

Through the years we have had some amazing teachers, aides, and therapists for Andrew which end up making the challenges manageable.

The aides that work with our kiddos definitely don’t get the thanks they deserve.

Last year during his 2nd grade year he had the absolute best aide ever!

His aide last year, Mrs. Diane Rittenberger, was kind and loving but yet made him do his work. He worked so well with her. They were made for each other.

All the teachers and parent helpers saw it and would tell me how great she was with him. She found out he was going to be a firefighter for Halloween so she bought a Dalmatian outfit to wear with him.

For his 2nd grade living museum he was Dr. Seuss and she dressed up as Cat in the Hat.

She attended his music performance to sit with him and help him. He uses an iPad to communicate with and she learned so much about his program Proloque2go. She researched different apps to load on his iPad to help him participate with his peers. She put all of his social stories on his iPad so he didn’t have to carry them separately.

She did so many things for him that were above and beyond and we couldn’t have been more thankful for her.

Unfortunately out of our control this year she was placed at a different building. Thankfully though, we keep in touch and she has become like family to us.

We don’t meet people by accident they were meant to cross our paths for a reason. We are blessed that our paths crossed and now we have gained a life long friend.

Thank you Mrs. Diane Rittenberger.

Written by, Amber Vojtush

(Editor’s Note: This article was provided by Amber Vojtush and is part of Cooper’s, ‘I’m Thankful For You’ Campaign.)

You can still nominate the doctors, therapists, teachers, friends and family that make a difference in your special needs world. Click HERE to learn how!

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