A MOTHER'S QUEST FOR ANSWERS

Ilana’s efforts to help her first autistic son equipped her to assist her third son when he was born with the same condition

- PIETER VAN ZYL

IT FELT like the bottom had fallen out of her world. Sitting in the office, she struggled to get her head around what the developmental expert was telling her about her 20-month-old son.

“He’ll never speak, go to school, be toilet trained, have friends, hold down a job or get married,” was the grim prognosis. Other experts were even blunter. “Put him in a home and forget about him,” were the words of advice that Ilana Gerschlowitz (44) and her husband, Martin (46), received about their son who was diagnosed with autism almost 16 years ago. But the Joburg couple refused to listen.

For the next few years Ilana searched tirelessly for answers – and what she learnt didn’t only allow her to help David to lead a happy and functional life, it also equipped her for the day when her youngest son, Aaron, was also diagnosed with the same condition when he was 16 months old.

The two boys had very different journeys with autism. While David (18) communicates mainly through a special device and has some vocal language, Aaron (7) is able to attend a mainstream school and is thriving.

“As the saying goes, ‘If you’ve met one individual with autism, you’ve met one individual with autism’,” says Ilana, who recently published a book entitled Saving My Sons, with journalist Marion Scher, about the family’s journey. The launch of the book coincides with April being World Autism Awareness Month.

Nevertheless, she says it’s because of what she went through with David that she was equipped to give Aaron the right intervention and treatment he needed to beat autism.