Meet Hayden Smith, a 7-year-old athlete from our Atlanta, GA program. Hayden tried soccer but his mother, LeKeshia Smith, didn’t feel like he quite fit in. So, she was thrilled to find a program her son felt he belonged to when they started at ACEing Autism.
“Hayden loves spinning and the volunteers spinned with him, so it helped him feel like he belonged,” she explained. “For us, it was so great to not have to explain my child,” she continued. “You get anxious going places and wonder if you’ll be able to take him somewhere and let him be who he is. So it is a very good feeling to have a place that lets him be him!”
Officially diagnosed at four years old, it took over two years for Hayden to get the diagnosis. “At around 18 months, I realized something wasn’t quite right: he knew shapes, numbers, but he wasn’t having conversational speech,” she recalled. “I had to change our pediatrician because he didn’t believe something was wrong so I found a nurse who listened. It took six months to get an appointment but once we started therapy, we went full on with OT and now ABA for seven hours a day five days a week,” she shared.
But after several years of getting the right support, LeKeshia also wanted Hayden to feel like a part of something, just like her daughter. “My daughter does dance, so I wanted him to be able to do something as well and ACEing Autism gives him something to do with me, just like his sister does,” the mom of two said. In addition to giving him a community, she has seen improvements in his social skills and motor skills.
“Transitioning was always hard but it’s getting better. He’s always been social but it was awkward. For instance, while at ACEing, he was staring at someone because he wanted to play and the volunteers picked up on it. So they asked him if he wanted to play with them and then made him ask himself,” she smiled. But that’s not it, “with games such as green light red light, he learns to follow directions and learns to play a game, which helps him outside of tennis as well,” LeKeshia added.
As we wrapped up our interview, she wanted to leave us with this fun anecdote from Hyden during the tennis sessions to show how important tennis has become. “When it is in session, he asks if he can go play tennis, even if it is a tuesday,” she laughed.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us and we can’t wait to see what Hayden conquers next on and off the court!
