●Mrs Angel Bertino

The Liztino Centre for Children with Special Needs has over the past decade become a safe haven for children born with autism disorder spectrum.

The centre, a parent’s quest to support an autistic child to live a normal life, had since been providing comfort and hope to families that have children with special needs.

Mrs Elizabeth Angel Acquah Bertino founded the centre in 2016, few years after his child, Phil Bertino was diag­nosed of autistic disorder.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a development dis­ability caused by differences in the brain. People with the disorder often have problems with social communication and interaction and restricted or repetitive behaviours or interests.

People with the disorder may also have different ways of learning, moving or paying attention. It is important to note that some people with­out the disorder might also have some of these symp­toms but for people with the disorder, these characteristics could make life very challeng­ing.

Some of the characteristics include, delayed language skills, delayed movement skills, delayed cognitive or learning skills, hyperactive, impulsive and/or inattentive behaviour.

Epilepsy or seizure dis­order, unusual eating and sleeping habits, gastroin­testinal issues (for example constipation), unusual mood or emotional reactions, anxi­ety, stress or excessive worry as well as lack of fear or more fear than usual are also some of the signs associated with it.

Following the success of the centre in transforming her now 16-year-old ward to live a normal life and gradually on his way to full recovery, Mrs Bertino decided to stretch her hands to other children through several awareness campaigns and services at her centre.

The campaigns engaged students, homes, companies and people on the streets as part of efforts to demystify the myths surrounding chil­dren with autism.

Some of the myths include autism is caused by vaccines, autism is a spiritual problem and people with the condition do not deserve to live (espe­cially in Africa), autism is a childhood condition, autistic people have learning difficul­ties and autism is caused by bad parenting.

Her approach to dealing with the condition is basically accessing a child’s current sit­uation, engage in therapy and most importantly dieting which could provide a great deal of transformation to the child.

For Mrs Bertino, the most import­ant part of the healing process was dieting as it reduces the hy­peractive behaviour and positions the person in a con­dition that could lead to other thera­pies required to manage the condition.

Mrs Bertino insists on early recognition as well as be­havioural, educa­tional and family therapies that had over the years helped in reducing the symptoms and support develop­ment and learning.

Essentially, her therapies that have been used at the facili­ty following research and education ranges from anger management, family therapy, applied behaviour analysis, behavioural therapy, sensory processing and exercising.

For anger management, she practices mindfulness, coping mechanisms and trigger avoidance to minimise destructive emotional out­bursts and with family thera­py, psychological counselling that helps families resolve conflicts, feel better about the situation and communi­cate more effectively.

Applied behaviour analy­sis is also used as a teaching method that helps autistic children learn socially relevant skills by encouraging positive be­haviour while behavioural therapy focuses on modifying harmful characters associated with psychological distress.

She also emphasises on sensory process­ing which deals with the way the nervous system receives messages from the senses and turns them into appropriate motor and behavioural responses.

She also turned one of her hobbies-cooking, into provid­ing adequate diets for patients under her care. For example, she bakes sugar-free bread which has essential ingre­dients including honey since sugar might trigger hyperac­tive behaviours.

She also loves to read which helped with engaging in research online to improve upon her works while exercis­ing is her personal attribute which also translate into therapy for her patients.

She currently has over 20 children under her care at her facility which she operates at her residence in Adenta.

Mrs Bertino also loves to spend time with his family of five (a supportive husband, a precious son and two lovely daughters).

Mrs Bertino is a preacher of love and is of the view that love was the greatest gift hu­mans can give to one anoth­er – an approach she uses in dealing with the patients that throng her facility on daily basis.

While engaging in her awareness creation and providing care for children with autism at her facility, she calls for support from the government and corporate entities to provide better con­ditions for people with autism disorder.

She essentially called on teachers and caregivers to treat people with autism with love and care as that would help them integrate into soci­ety and become better.

In a way to give back to society, aside the annual awareness creation campaigns which is usually used to donate items to the needy in society, she also holds regular ‘Liztino Special Tutorials’ to teach people about autism in areas of understanding the disorder, early detection, some treatment and special diet.

“Together we can pro­vide the support, love, care and attention to people with autism and make the world a better place for all as disabili­ty is never an inability be­cause there is something good in every child,” she said.

By Michael D. Abayateye