Meet Brock Carter, a 12 year-old player at our ACEing Autism Winston Salem program, who has been coming since he was around 7 years old.

A very active and bright child, he exceeded his milestones early on but was identified with ADHD at age 4.

“He struggled a little bit more with emotion regulation and eventually was diagnosed with autism at age 5,” his mother Gina explained.

“Sometimes there is a misalignment and because his academic and reasoning were at or above,  people see that as just trying harder,” Gina told us. “As he gets older, it’s easier to identify but that can be hidden for a while.”

The areas Brock has been working on are emotion regulations and coping skills to help with problem solving. “We knew that there was more going on and it was a relief to understand him and get to go in the right direction and get into a community,” Gina who is married to Charles, said. 

Brock had his challenges in regular schooling and it was so hard for him to conform to regular schooling but once they started ABA, they got him the support he needed and it helped him fill these gaps. “It took a couple of years to get him into the right therapies and having the right plan, but being able to identify what he needs leads to him getting a better education and the right people to help him,” the mother of 5 explained.

As a family, they are really open about Brock’s diagnosis, his emotions to help learn about how to deal with it. “Brock diagnosis and therapies actually support us as well. In a way, it has prepared us for the adoption of our two 8 year old and 6 year old children from China,” she laughed. “We’re always learning, I have to relearn and reteach Brock in a different way but that helped us with our younger kids who came from traumatic backgrounds. We were much more prepared to support them,” Gina, who is also the stepmother to Austin, voiced to us. 

Since starting therapy and ACEing Autism, Brock has made tremendous progress. “ACEing Autism is one tool to help and all these different pieces help support him and build his self esteem.” He continues to show improvement even though he still has the same challenges. But he has more tools and it won’t be as hard because he knows how to use those tools. “He does a lot more self coaching,” the mom, who is a volunteer Director of Finance and Administration at Brock’s school, said.  

Brock, a Star Wars lover, was thrilled to be spotlighted. “Sometimes I feel like the only one who is going through this so If I can help someone, I will,” the book and hike lover told us.