Sam Debold
By Vicky and David Debold

Sam Debold is a 12-year-old boy who loves to play piano! But things have not always been easy for Sam. He has had to work hard to overcome many challenges.

When Sam was three years old, he was diagnosed with autism. At that time, he spent most of his time lining up toy cars and crayons, building tall towers with blocks, and spinning whatever he could spin – small fans, pinwheels, even the salad spinner. When we called his name, he would not turn his head and look. With one major exception – certain sounds – he was almost oblivious to the world around him.

Like many children who develop autism today, Sam started as a happy and normally developing baby. We had no reason to be concerned about him; he was bright-eyed and had a terrific sense of humor, he enjoyed his family and his dog and cat, and he was rarely sick.

At his 15-month well-baby visit, the doctor noted that he was developmentally on target – he was talking and beginning to walk as was age-appropriate. During that visit, he received seven live-virus and killed-bacteria vaccines – measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and haemophilus influenzae b.

The next day, he was unable to stand up in his crib, was very “wobbly” when he tried to stand, and kept plopping down on his bottom when we tried to help him to get up on his feet. And he seemed a bit dazed. We assumed that his legs hurt from the shots and thought some extra Tylenol would help.

Sam had been trying to walk before his shots, but he lost interest for the next two months and went back to crawling exclusively. He also started having frequent loose stools containing undigested food. He seemed to stop learning new words. Eventually he even stopped using the words that he knew. He was no longer interested in socializing with his family and would become very upset and have a tantrum anytime he was encouraged to try something different.

Although Sam became less and less connected to the world around him, he was very responsive to sound. Some sounds really upset him – the sound of the hair dryer, coffee grinder and vacuum. Other sounds really made him happy. He was consistently attracted to one thing – the Jeopardy theme song. Jeopardy came on after the news, and when Sam heard that song he would come running and look at the TV and smile and dance. From that, we realized that music was somehow getting through to him in a way that spoken words could not.

After Sam was diagnosed with autism, we began researching various options that could be of benefit to him. We later learned that Sam had symptoms of a particular bowel disease that other autistic children have, and we took him in for the medical tests needed to confirm that problem. Before that, we tried modifying his diet – first removing all dairy and later removing all gluten. About 10 days after we removed the dairy, Sam began to turn his head again when we called his name. He had not done that for 18 months. We also started an intensive in-home educational therapy (ABA) program which was supplemented by speech and music therapy. He also attended the pre-primary impaired program at the public school a few mornings each week.

It was obvious from the way Sam responded during music therapy – we called it "music time" – that something about music excited him. When he was six years old, we started including piano lessons as part of music therapy. Sam rapidly excelled, and some days he would spend hours and hours playing songs. He appears to have perfect acoustic pitch and is able to hear music and tell you what notes are being played. Frequently he will listen a few times to a new song that he likes and then sit down and play it.

For his 12th birthday, we gave him an electronic keyboard and he is learning to record multi-track songs. In July he will begin hosting a monthly radio program on Autism One called "Jam with Sam". He frequently provides the piano accompaniment for programs at his elementary school and is beginning to play for other audiences.

Sam will be in 6th grade this Fall – he is in a regular classroom with a part-time aide. He’s involved in a number of other activities including being a very fast ice skater on his special needs hockey team, the NOVA Cool Cats. He also has a new-found interest in playing baseball – both as a Wii "Super Slugger" and on the local ball field with his dad. He lives at home with his mom and dad and what he calls his two "younger sisters": collie dogs named Bunni and Violet.

Visit his web site at: http://www.samdebold.com