For Phyllis Wheeler, it was like a wonderful dream that was suddenly replaced by a very bad dream. Her first child, Shannon was a perfectly normal baby. Born in 1987, before the autism epidemic, the little girl didn’t exhibit any unusual behavior until she was 4.

Without reason, Shannon began to lose eye contact. In the first grade, her teachers noticed strange behavior — difficulty walking up and down the stairs, inability to catch a ball, and general lagging motor development. She spent recess watching the ants march in and out of their ant holes.

“She learned to read late — in the second grade — and muddled through her classes,” said Phyllis. “Initially, specialists thought Shannon had ADD and put her on Ritalin. Finally, at 11 she got an Asperger’s diagnosis — which confirmed our suspicions that her condition was much more serious than ADD. But back in 1998, Asperger’s was uncharted territory — nobody had even heard of the condition.”

“We did everything we could — signed her up for social interaction therapy, found her a counselor, and started home schooling in the eighth grade… ” said Phyllis. “Then in 2006 when she was 18 and doing pretty well, we tried the Dr. Amy Yasko protocol that helps the child according to their genetic profile. We put Shannon and her younger brother, who also registered on the autism spectrum, on a regimen of nutritional supplements. The Yasko protocol may have helped her a little, we’re not sure. Socialization was still an unsolved challenge. Shannon was incapable of responding normally to other people in social situations. She was walled in by her autism — lack of social reciprocity, accompanied by anxiety.”

“At this point, we felt that Shannon had progressed as far as she could go. Then we heard about a new protocol for addressing autism: NAET. Our close friend, Becca Skrainka, RN, a practitioner, offered to work on Shannon using NAET.” After plugging away for a full year, the progress was evident. It was clear that Shannon was coming out of her shell and could relate to people in a normal way. “She was actually initiating social contact — even suggesting that we go shopping or hiking. The wall between us was gone. In my opinion, it was a miracle!”

“For all those years, I had mourned the daughter I didn’t have — the one I thought I’d lost at the age of 4. Now finally, I had her back!”

Post NAET Treatment

Shannon Wheeler is 24 and has gone back to school to study biology, her dream. She’s taking microbiology and is at the top of her class. She’s supporting herself as a pharmacy technician. And now she has friends.