Just the Beginning
Children and parents discover new hope through the Center for New Beginnings
By Elizabeth Billips lizbillips@yahoo.com

Director Sarah Ashe works with 5- year-old Adan. She believes intense intervention is the key to leading autistic children like him to recovery.

Meet Adan. At age 5, he wears diapers. He can't talk.

But there's hope in the eyes of Sarah Ashe as she helps him climb the slide at the Center for New Beginnings.

"Slide," she says, forming his little hand to make the word.

Adan flies to the bottom and pauses to touch his fingertips together.

"More," Sarah understands. "More. More."

Meet Mikel.

Conversation doesn't come natural to the 6- year-old. He averts his dark-lashed eyes and struggles for the right words. "I'm Michael I'm fine how are you?" he blurts out as if getting it off his chest.

His mother hugs his waist and laughs.

Before finding the center, he'd been known to greet people by biting them.

Turn back two decades, and there you find Sarah in a special education classroom wishing she could do more.

Her chest aches for the parents who drop their kids off every morning. Normal joys of parenthood mock them, and tiredness seeps behind the corners of their smiles.

Mikel, 6, practices letter recognition during a tutoring session. The center provides one-on-one therapy and controlled playgroups to children suffering from sensory disorders like Asperger Syndrome.

Her autistic students pull at her heart the hardest. She wants to pry apart the petals of their tight-closed worlds. She wants to release the small voices trapped inside.

Three years ago, Sarah quit her job to do just that.

Working out of a single room donated by First Baptist Church, she began a one-woman show, one child at a time.

"I wanted to bring resources to our rural county," she says, never dreaming the community's need would run so deep. "wanted to work with families ... to empower them to meet their own needs."

The non-profit center is now a haven for more than 60 kids from age 2 to 17.

"Almost all of the children here have sensory issues," Sarah says. "They're bombarded by their senses ... lights, sounds, sights. They close themselves off to not go crazy. They may seem hyperactive, but they're actually hypersensitive."

Some kids, like Adan, have classic autism. Those like Mikel have a higher functioning form of autism called Asperger Syndrome. Others have attention deficit disorder and learning disabilities.

"People give up on these children too soon ... they can't see their potential," Sarah says, trying to stave off tears. "For some reason, can see it."

The center's 16 rooms at First Baptist Church are stretched to the seams with nearly two dozen volunteers, paid staff, therapists and counselors. It's a hub for specialized therapy and resources ... and for the parents, it's sounding board, support group and liaison between schools, therapists and doctors.

"Doctors give a diagnosis, but they don't really give the parents resources for dealing with every day challenges," Sarah says. "We're a voice of experience when things come up that they're not sure how to handle."