Don’t ever let biases cost you or someone you love the chance to flourish
Personal blog by our CEO, Brent Mondoux

At the age of 3, Aiden was developmentally behind by 18 months. He hadn’t yet been able to crawl, couldn’t chew food, never focused on the television for more than 15 seconds, he couldn’t tell us what was causing the challenges. Specialists ranged from speech therapists, physiotherapists, eye specialists and a typical week included 3 specialist appointments each and every week for two years. Financial challenges aside, the stress and strain on our family was unbelievable and both Nat and I suffered a great deal of stress and tension that was extremely challenging to deal with. We both felt lost and afraid to share our fears with the ones around us who loved us and continued to support us through all of this.

As Aiden was nearing the age of 4, our team of specialists from La Ressource in Hull, Quebec (a phenomenal team of specialists each with their own respective areas of expertise) started to eliminate some potential causes for the challenges – he had no muscular issues, his eyesight posed no significant challenges (despite a birth defect called collaboma in both eyes) and his developmental delays weren’t being driven by any auditory disability.  At this point the specialists urged us to try a small dose of ADHD medication. This entwined my wife and I into a ball of emotional doubt, because like so many others we were uneducated and overreacted to the stigma that the media has put on the use of this medication. Our parents also held their own differing degrees of doubt, as they also struggled to cope with the unknown possibilities of the diagnosis.

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