When Jessica was a toddler her parents thought she just had a vivid imagination.
The pretty girl seemed to live in her own world.
But a neighbor with experience of her own saw a reason for concern. And as Jessica's mother started reading library books she saw a future for her child that would scare any parent.
Autism.
For Ronda Wintheiser, who lives with her family just south of Brainerd, the eventual diagnosis of Jessica's autism was like a death notice. Hope meant a vigil for a girl lost in the infinite waves of her own mind. Most of all Jessica's family hoped to make contact with the girl they knew was locked inside.
Wintheiser refused to accept the idea that there would be no recovery -- that she would never carry on a conversation with her daughter. And a Twin Cities conference led to discovering an intense program that offers an alternative in the battle waged to reach autistic children.
"She is not a cluster of behaviors they call autism," Ronda Wintheiser said of her 8-year-old daughter. "She is at the core a human being. We are teaching her to become a person."
After two years in a regular special education program, Jessica had not made any major progress.
"You can't assess a child who can't communicate," Wintheiser said. "I live with her. I knew she was in there."
A program at University of California in Los Angeles developed by psychology professor Ivar Lovaas provided new hope.
Three groups of children younger than kindergarten age were studied. After three years 47 percent of children -- who received 40 plus hours a week in the Applied Behavior Therapy UCLA program -- went on to be mainstreamed to regular first grade classes. Later, when tested by those unfamiliar with the now 12-year-old students, the children were undistinguishable from their classmates.
"I wasn't trying to do something alternative," Wintheiser said of the program. "I was just looking for something that worked."
Opinions about Applied Behavior Analysis can be mixed. Jayne Struss, Brainerd School District speech pathologist, said the process was rather disparaged when it was first introduced because of past misconceptions on ABA.
But over time, Struss said people are beginning to understand the program and the benefits it means to a child with autism and their families. In the school system the ABA means about two hours a day combined then with other programming. Struss called the results from two hours a day amazing.
"As we go through an assessment now with the child, we want the public to know that ABA is available," Struss said. "But it is an individual program based on the child's needs."
A team, typically made of parents, school administrator, special education specialist and classroom teachers and others, decides any program.
"For Jessica -- she started later in life -- for her that progressive development of language skills is just amazing," Struss said, adding Jessica went from being self-focused to being a curious little girl interested in the world around her.
Wintheiser said her daughter has gone from being a 5-year-old who could not respond to a question to a girl who can describe her own thoughts. Jessica, who still often refers to herself in the third person, watches her study sessions on tape, which she calls watching school.
"This is delicious," Jessica said between smiles, the tape and a Tootsie Pop.
"We are starting to be able to see who she is," Wintheiser said. "One of the most painful things of being a parent of an autistic child -- you feel you cannot know your child ... and they have no way to get out. I'll never forget the first time she said 'I love you.'"
