First wave

Once she acclimated to the shock of Damian’s diagnosis, Bastante threw herself into finding a way to crack the code of her young son’s silence. Over the next couple of years she tried speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, applied behavioral analysis therapy, horse therapy and swimming therapy.

The search was timeconsuming and emotionally trying, and exerted significant financial pressure, with Bastante’s insurance and Medicaid not nearly enough to cover the costs. Bastante, who works two jobs, says these stresses eventually led to a divorce from her husband.

When Damian was 5, Bastante came across a flier for a group of Deerfield Beach surfers who were trying to gather autistic children at the shore to introduce them to the therapeutic relationship they enjoyed with the sea. The instruction was free. In her research, Bastante had heard about the positive effects of surfing on autistic children. She and Damian arrived at the beach just as surfers and volunteers, calling themselves Surfers for Autism, were setting up for their first event at the Deerfield Beach pier. Damian was the first of a handful of kids to sign up that day in 2008.

His mother watched from the shore as three SFA volunteers led Damian into the choppy water and put him on a surfboard for the first time.

“I was panicky at first. So nervous. But I watched him coming in on that first wave, on his hands and knees, and that big smile,” Bastante says, beaming. “I was like, ‘Wow.’ That’s all you ever want, is to see your kid smile, to see that pure joy. And that’s what he had. … He only talked in phrases back then, and when he got in, he said, ‘Again!’ ”