"What's Health Got to Do with It?" is a talk program from WJCT in Jacksonville that examines the intersection of health care and daily life.
In this episode, we speak to a mother who stopped at nothing to support her son with autism, even if it meant going against the status quo.
Mary Jane White shares her experience advocating for her son amid a tangled web of specialists while managing his sensory needs so he could thrive.
Her son was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at age 3 in 1994. Given a dismal prognosis, she researched treatments and opted for an intense early intervention that dramatically increased her son's IQ, speaking ability and social skills. He's now a researcher in robotic cybersecurity,
White writes about their experiences in her book, "What It Took to Raise My Son With Autism: To Be His Own Person, Loose in the Universe."
Then we are joined by psychologist Brian Freedman, director of the Swank Autism Center at Nemours Children's Health in Wilmington, Delaware. He discusses how approaches to autism diagnoses and treatments have evolved in recent years as well as the importance of early interventions.
In our later block, Dr. Amitha Kalaichandran, author of "On Healing: Finding Wholeness Beyond the Limits of Medicine," looks beyond conventional medicine to find “wholeness” in healing.
She contends that medical practitioners can better support patients by focusing not only on physical recovery, but also by taking a holistic approach that takes a patient’s emotional and spiritual health into account.
The program host is Jacksonville neurologist Dr. Joe Sirven.
Click on the Listen button above to hear the program.
Click here for previous episodes of "What's Health Got to Do With It?"
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