Goal is helping others to understand

WEST HAZLETON – Does a crying child in church get on your nerves?

How about the 5-year-old boy who’s screaming bloody murder in the aisle at the store?

Kim and Matthew Kuzma have dealt with those types of nerve-wracking situations, but from the opposite perspective.

“People think, ‘God, she can’t control her child,’” Kim said between working on customers at her hair salon on Sunday.

“They don’t realize we’re trying to teach him how to act in that situation,” Kim said of some people’s views on how she and her husband Matthew deal with their youngest son.

Shane looks pretty much like any other 5-year-old boy, but he doesn’t act like many others.

In October 2005, he was diagnosed with autism – a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others.

It’s a serious disorder that many people don’t understand and that, if untreated, will leave a person socially and emotionally isolated their entire life.

Educating the public about autism is one of the reasons the Kuzma family organized “Cuts for a Cure” – a fundraiser at her shop on Winters Avenue called Hair Works by Kim.

The shop is normally closed on Sundays, but Kim opened it up from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and is donating the proceeds from all haircuts that day to Autism Speaks – a non-profit organization that funds research and support programs.

Kim said parents who suspect their child might be autistic should have the child seen by a neurologist as soon as possible. Once diagnosed, an autistic child should begin treatment with a psychologist immediately because there is a “window of opportunity” for optimal treatment.

And while many insurance companies don’t cover treatment for autism, state aid is available.

“We were paying $239 an hour for speech therapy until we got plugged into the state ACCESS system,” Kim said.

She also recommended parents of newly-diagnosed autistic children join a support group.

Fortunately, learning sign language and teaching it to Shane has helped the family communicate with him better. And it has also helped him to begin speaking, she said.