Gerard Montocchio
Born October 10, 1995 in Vienna, Austria.
I was born with a serious heart defect and because of that, my brain was
starved of oxygen and I suffered a severe, diffuse brain injury. For the
first four years of my life Mum and Dad tried everything they could to treat
me, but had little success from the treatment programs available at the
hospitals in our city, and I didn’t really progress at all.
I was four when my parents discovered the “Institutes”
and started doing my Intensive Treatment
Program. At this time I was functionally blind, totally deaf, I could only really
move on my tummy on the floor about one meter at a time, and I couldn’t feel pain or hot and
cold. I also suffered terribly from digestive problems and eating was
difficult and keeping my food down was even worse.
After four years of the Institutes’ Program I was growing neurologically much faster than before
the program, had learned to read, do some maths, write notes to my parents on an FC Board, get
around the house
crawling, I could hear and I started feeling much better. At this time we changed
to ABR, not because we were unhappy about the Institutes,
to the contrary. We all felt concerned about my physical and mobility progress and decided
that we wanted to do ABR from then on.
Now I am doing an ABR Program and many significant changes have taken place. I fly to Belgium
five times a year and we learn new techniques at every visit.
If you would like to see more about me, my program, my progress so far and my family,
please look at my web site.
Thank you for reading about me and considering the possibility of becoming a
member of our Society to help brain-injured people like me.
GerardPullingHimselfUp.pdf
