The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Daily Herald and The Salt Lake Tribune.
Saratoga Springs • On the worst days, Brittney Olsen remembers crawling into a closet to meet her son after school to hold him in her lap while he cried.
The then-seventh grader, who has high-functioning autism, knew he wasn’t like some of the other students. His teachers would tell him he was slow, Brittney said, or act like he didn’t care about his schoolwork.
“He would cry and say, ‘Why did God let me live so I can just fail at everything?’” she recalls. “‘I don’t fit in. No one understands me. I’m so different from everyone.’”
During this period, Brittney often worried he would decide to take his own life.
But since getting him into services at PBJ & Friends, a new clinic in Saratoga Springs that provides behavior-focused therapy to autistic children and teenagers, she said she’s seen “immense changes.”
Now 14, he can brush his teeth and wash his hair on his own for the first time. He’s getting better at advocating for his boundaries and communicating his emotions. And she said his mental health is better than she’s seen it “probably in my life.”
“In the last few months, he’s happy,” Brittney said. “He’s independent. He’ll go play his guitar. He’ll go do things. He’s not moping around the house. He feels successful, and...
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