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Hi All! We are the Leroux family, and this is our son Logan. Logan is our amazing four year old, who just so happens to have level three low verbal autism. He is the happiest little boy. He enjoys swimming, jumping on trampolines, learning dinosaur names, organizing wooden trains, singing along to music, and pretend play. His best friend is his older sister, who always shares her treats with him.  He is loving, kind and always looking for a cuddle.
 
When he was born, Logan had a noticeable foot deformity called Metatarsus Adductus, and surprisingly his feet are how we started our autism diagnosis journey. From birth Logan was seen by an amazing team of Orthopedic Surgeons and Specialists, to try and help his feet develop properly. By the age of two it was evident that this was not the case, and we would need to start a lengthy casting process. Every two weeks, for 8 weeks, Logan would be placed in corrective casts from his knees to his toes on both legs. At our first casting appointment, the doctor asked a few routine questions. They asked “how many words does Logan say?” which we answered with none. They followed up with “does Logan interact with others?'' which we had to respond with no again. We explained that Logan didn't like to socialize. He preferred to spend his time by himself, organizing his toys. Finally, the doctor asked, “does Logan make eye contact?”, and again we had to respond with no. The doctor and his medical support staff went silent. The doctor gently told us that we should call our family doctor and inform them of these things. From this point, we would see these same doctors every two weeks for Logan to have his casts changed. Every two weeks, the doctors would ask more questions about Logan that we continually had to answer no to. At this time, we began to realize that Logan potentially had a developmental delay. During the first cast change appointment, Logan put up quite the fight. Logan could not process the sounds of the orthopedic unit or the feeling of being held down by the medical staff for the duration of the procedure. It took 6 adults to pin and immobilize our two year old just to remove the casts. It was an absolute gut-wrenching experience. For his future appointments, the doctors decided that Logan would need to be medically sedated for the remaining cast change appointments. This was for Logan’s safety and wellbeing. This was the first mention that Logan may have a sensory processing disorder. Unfortunately, the casting procedure did not correct the issues. To this day, Logan wears Ankle Foot Orthosis (AFO) braces with his shoes.      

Our family doctor was a magnificent help during this time, as much as possible with her clinics closed due to the COVID 19 pandemic. She was able to do phone check-ins, allowing us to keep her up to date with his developmental progress as we waited for the pediatrician to have him formally evaluated. We quickly discovered that Logan was not meeting the standard two year old developmental milestones, and that he was developmentally at 6-12 months.  Logan was formally diagnosed on September 3rd,  2021, two months before his third birthday. The doctor at CHEO was extremely kind. As we went through the questionnaire, he indicated that he had no doubt that Logan was on the autism spectrum. On this day, Logan was  diagnosed with level three, non verbal autism and a developmental delay. We have since been referred to multiple resources to help us with Logan’s development; occupational therapy, speech therapy, Social ABC’s and a school preparation activities.
 
Logan has come leaps and bounds from his diagnosis, including developing from non verbal to low verbal with the help of speech therapy. With the help of occupational therapy, he is now able to independently feed himself and play. Logan has also learned how to interact with others through social communication therapy. It has been amazing to see him grow and flourish. Logan started school in September of 2022 and we have seen huge improvements, most noticeably a huge developmental leap from 18 months developmentally in September to 30 months developmentally in June. His school team are an amazing resource, and they have been helping facilitate this massive developmental leap. Logan is extremely intelligent and loves numbers and words. He taught himself the alphabet, spelling and reading all through nursery rhymes and listening to our family. During our speech therapy block, we were able to discover that Logan has a unique speech processing style. Logan is a Gestalt Language Processor, meaning he learns larger chunks of dialog instead of individual words, and then uses the learned dialogs in place of standard language responses. As an example, when Logan would like something to eat he will sing the “ I want to eat eat eat apples and bananas song” replacing “apples and bananas” with the food he would prefer. Once we discovered Logan's language processing style, we were able to expand his vocabulary which allows him to identify his needs verbally. Something he hadn't been able to do until this point.
 
Unfortunately, like with most children who have autism, Logan has some struggles. He has difficulty with transitions and routine change. Logan is a creature of habit, and he is extremely dependent of his family and home. This makes it nearly impossible to travel or to do family activities away from home. Any change has to be done in extremely small and slow progressions. For example; at the beginning of this school year, Logan would only attend for 1 hour per day. At the end of his school year, he was able to complete four consecutive hours per day, some of which is in class participating with his fellow classmates. Logan is also a “flight risk”. His curiosity will often get the best of him, thus requiring our constant supervision. If anything piques his interest, he will find a way to get to it (a true Houdini). For that reason, we had to equip our home with fences, gates and elevated locks to prevent his escape attempts.     
 
After extensive searching, researching, and asking friends and colleagues for advice; we found K4Paws. We’re writing this story to bring awareness to a remarkable cause, K4Paws, and to ask for your support. Any and all contributions are welcomed and greatly appreciated. With the help of a Service Dog, Logan will be able to experience more of the world around him (with a furry best friend). We are certain that, with the help of one of these magnificent animals, Logan will be able to learn, explore and grow for years to come.
 
Thank you for your support.