It's Not Just Autism: REI and the Beauty of Addressing the Symptoms, Not the Diagnosis

By Beth Kaplan Strong

One of the beautiful things about the REI Custom Program is our keen focus on symptoms. A client with Autism is not just a child with a disorder and diagnosis; instead this child is a child with specific symptomatic challenges. And the REI Custom Program breaks these challenges down to the specifics of how they manifest in each child.

When a parent chooses the symptoms of sleep, sensory processing, and anxiety for her child with Autism; the intake questionnaire will offer only questions that explore the severity and presentation of sleep, sensory processing, and anxiety. We then match the symptom presentations to the corresponding rhythms for the the child's first custom program track.

Thereafter, each track adjustment during the course of the Program offers a progressive level of stimulation. And it is exactly this stimulation that will support and push the client toward higher levels of improvement in his symptoms. The progressive stimulation for every track adjustment is chosen based upon the parent's real-time feedback on their child's symptoms on the current track. Thus the therapy is custom-made and dynamic.

Symptom by symptom, REI is able to improve the challenges faced by a child. One therapy. One child. Many symptoms. Whether the diagnosis is for Autism, ADD, Sensory Processing Disorder, or any other neurological disorder, REI is able to break down and make improvement to the specific challenges our clients face. And as experience has shown, within a week, everyone is sleeping better.

How to choose symptoms

If you are uncertain as to which symptoms on which you would like to focus, it would be best to examine the REI Symptom FAQs and read the simple descriptions of each symptom. Decide how many symptoms you would like to work on (in other words, choose your program) and select those symptoms that are the biggest challenge or are simply the most pervasive.

Most symptoms do not stand alone, but are interconnected. Therefore, as improvements are made in one area, such as anxiety, the severity of a child's social interaction challenges might very well lessen because of the child's newly reduced anxiety.

Click here for more information on the REI Custom Program  and symptom selection