46. Providing a Roadmap for Neurodevelopmental Disorders with Maria Rickert Hong

Jan 7

In this week's highly informative and eye-opening episode, I interview Maria Rickert Hong, Certified Holistic Health Counselor and author of Almost Autism and Brain Under Attack, who has recovered her son from Sensory Processing Disorder along with a host of other health conditions.

Maria Rickert Hong is a former Wall Street equity research analyst who is now a Certified Holistic Health Counselor. She helps parents recover their children from neurodevelopmental disorders including autism, almost autism, ADHD, ADD, PDD-NOS through diet and lifestyle changes.

Her journey into health began when her first son started developing symptoms of diseases at 3 months old. As time went on he had numerous health conditions including asthma, sensory issues, constipation, and more, and was on about 10 different medications by the time he was 18 months old.

By the time he was 3 and Maria had her second son, Maria developed severe adrenal fatigue, uterine fibroids, ovarian cysts, bronchitis, and shingles when she wasn’t getting enough sleep from her son waking up 6 times a night. Maria ended up taking Zoloft and Ambien for insomnia but they didn’t help.

Frustrated with not getting help for her son nor herself from her conventional, western doctors, she started doing research and found nutritionist Ann Louise Gittleman and her books which led her to try out magnesium for her insomnia, which solved her sleep problem immediately.

After working with a naturopath for herself and her son and seeing significant improvement in their health, Maria decided to pay it forward and become a Holistic Health Coach.

Maria is also the Education and Media Director for Epidemic Answers, a 501(c)3 non-profit that lets parents know that recovery is possible and is the sponsoring non-profit of The Documenting Hope Project.

She lays out the roadmap for the recovery process for many disorders which includes proper nutrition and lifestyle, finding the right practitioner, and finding therapies that incorporate reflex integration. She emphasizes the importance of getting to the root causes of the issues.

"No one thing caused your child’s autism. It’s a multitude of factors. It’s a perfect storm. And because of that, there’s no one thing that will undo it. And it’s always a journey," Maria says.

She tells us it's never too late and that some adults with autism have turned things around. She also reminds moms to take good care of themselves because if they don't they can't take care of their child either.

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