A MOTHER’S QUEST FOR ANSWERS

IT FELT like the bottom had fallen out of her world. Sitting in the office, she struggled to get her head around what the developmental expert was telling her about her 20-month-old son.

“He’ll never speak, go to school, be toilet trained, have friends, hold down a job or get married,” was the grim prognosis. Other experts were even blunter. “Put him in a home and forget about him,” were the words of advice that Ilana Gerschlowitz (44) and her husband, Martin (46), received about their son who was diagnosed with autism almost 16 years ago. But the Joburg couple refused to listen.

For the next few years Ilana searched tirelessly for answers