Managed and owned by Michael Moed for the past seventeen years, Friendly Tire has emerged as one of the top used and new tires facilities in all of Broward County. Through hard work and much experience, Moed has built the Friendly Tire business into prominent status in the discount tire industry. He is also the father of three boys, Seth, Ryan, and Aaron and one daughter, Sydney. The Moed family became aware of autism when his youngest son, Aaron, was diagnosed with a mild case of autism at the age of 2 in 2003.
Moed has been around the tire business since an early age. His father owned a tire store of his own, where he worked at and gained much valuable experience in the field that would later lead to success with his very own store not too many years later. Moed learned his strong work ethic and responsibility from his father while working for his father. Now with Friendly Tire, Moed carries along those strong morals and applies them to his own business that has held its own and become very successful.
Aaron’s family became determined to do everything they could to support Aaron and help him get better as much as possible. Even till this day Aaron goes through many speech, behavioral, and occupational therapy sessions. The hard work represented by Moed in his occupation highly resembles the family’s determination to make Aaron’s life better.
Before Aaron was diagnosed with autism, the family knew nothing about it. When Aaron was first diagnosed, they received much information from Nova Southeastern University Card Services. As Aaron was already receiving speech therapy, the family added on Applied Behavior Therapy (ABA) as recommended by his preschool teacher and speech therapist.
Nova aided the family in finding a private ABA therapist who started working with Aaron when he was 3 years old. The therapist was instrumental in Aaron’s progress as it was through her work that Aaron started to talk and follow 1-2 step directions. In time the family started to see progress in other areas and realized the potential that Aaron had inside of him. It became clear how important therapy is to a child with autism. Following the addition of ABA, the family also added occupational therapy to Aaron’s program.
Occupational therapy is generally a very important part of an autistic child’s program. Currently Aaron receives ABA therapy for eight hours week at Behavior Analysis. After the initial private therapist that Aaron first worked with, the family had a tough time searching for a new one that was just as effective. They experienced ones that just didn’t care about their jobs and ones that cared way too much but only because of the monetary value of it. Like the movies, it turned out that the sequel did not end up being as good or close to the first.
As a family, they were left clueless and they were not sure what to do in order to aid Aaron. Michael and his wife, Debbie, began to search for different special needs educational options. The task became difficult as it was soon to be discovered that there were such a limited amount of schools for special needs children and that the remoteness of the locations were less than favorable.
His parents eventually found a suitable education and finally Aaron began his education at a preschool program held at the Atlantic West Elementary public school of Broward County schools. He then went to a private school with a small amount of children that did not turn the way they expected it to. Once Aaron got older and entered elementary school age, they decided to send him to the special needs program at Parkside Elementary School where he still attends today.
The Moed family has tried to help Aaron in all aspects including joining different organizations such as the National Autism Society, Autism Speaks, and the Autism Society of America. Aaron also participates in a program called the Friendship Circle, which is a program that offers free events for special needs children in which they are partnered up with a teenage volunteer. The program is run by the Chabad of Parkland. He has also participated in sports leagues for special needs children where the sports included baseball. Aaron’s family does activities with him daily such as going outside and playing soccer or even just going to get groceries. Everyone in the family has sacrificed a great deal in order to make Aaron’s life the best it can possibly be.
The future for Aaron is appearing to be brighter as time goes on. Aaron’s attendance at a typical camp this summer, combined with his new therapies will help with his progress and add to the potential for more classroom mainstreaming. Active treatment is worth it and the benefits derived from it are vast.
Michael Moed is the owner of Tire Service - www.FriendlyTire.net.
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