There’s Always More We Can Do

He bounces around the treatment room like any two-year-old boy in blue jeans. He’s fascinated by a pinball game. He loves a set of colored cards. He smiles. He claps his hands.

But when therapist Mae Carlson asks the boy to repeat simple sounds after her, the plot changes abruptly.
“Boo,” says Mae.
“Boo,” replies the boy, brightly.
“Bee,” says Mae.
“Boo,” replies the boy, a little less brightly.
“Bye,” says Mae.

The boy says nothing. His brain won’t let him.
He has been diagnosed with autism, and he can’t always coordinate his muscles, lips and tongue to mimic or produce sounds.

As recently as two decades ago, this boy might have been institutionalized. But on a warm Wednesday morning in March, he is being treated at one of the Washington area’s largest and most successful non-profit hearing and speech clinics, Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing.

BRSH is located in an office park in Lansdowne, Virginia, about 20 miles northwest of Dulles International Airport. It has served the burgeoning population of Loudoun County since 1964.

In the fiscal year that ended last June 30, BRSH provided audiology, speech and occupational therapy services to 1,172 people. The agency also conducts screenings in Loudoun County pre-schools once a week to identify children at risk.

“We see a lot of kids with special needs, kids on the autism spectrum,” said Kristi Stilen-Lare, the president and CEO. The agency also operates loaner banks for hearing equipment. It prides itself on providing services to people and families who can’t pay.

BRSH is a longtime partner of United Way of the National Capital Area. United Way donations support the agency’s everyone-gets-served policy. BRSH received $3,864.49 in United Way support in the last fiscal year.

“A lot of working families can’t afford our services,” said Stilen-Lare. “Or insurance plans put caps on how many visits someone can have. United Way funds give us the flexibility” to treat patients who wouldn’t otherwise be treated, she said.

At BRSH, miracles seldom happen. But slow and steady progress often does.One patient, an 18-year-old boy who suffered a traumatic brain injury, has been in treatment at BRSH for more than six years. As recently as four months ago, he couldn’t dress himself. But recently, he came within a whisker of being able to put on his own pants. “It’s real progress,” said his therapist, Kristin Palen.

Another patient, a three-year-old boy, couldn’t respond to questions or commands unless they were sung. He suffers from a condition called apraxia, an inability to process verbal commands.

But after nearly a year of therapy with pathologist Trinity E. Costic, the boy “can express himself in multiple sentences” and “he doesn’t need music all the time” to understand and obey commands, Costic said.

“Literally, from week to week, you’re seeing progress,” Costic said.
If BRSH had more support from United Way? Stilen-Lare said she’d convert part-time positions to full-time and do more pre-school screening.

“There’s always more we can do,” she said.