A High Point restaurant is helping a local family pay medical expenses for a 8-year-old boy living with autism.

This Thursday night, Pizza Inn at 110 W. Fairfield Road in High Point is holding a fundraiser where 10 percent of all sales from 5 to 9 p.m. will go towards helping the Turner family pay for therapy sessions for their youngest son Joseph, who is diagnosed with autism. As part of Joseph’s treatment he sees Lexington educational specialist Dr. Jane Leonard. The program provides outcome driven services for children with developmental disabilities including autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. Family and friends of the Turner’s will serve as the waiting staff, and all tips and donations also will benefit Joseph’s treatments.

“He is doing very well,” Tara Turner said of her son. “He can say about 20-25 words a day and can name most of the foods he wants to eat. He still stays sick a lot and that’s kind of hard. It’s like you have to start all over again. Pizza Inn has been really good about allowing us to do this. Sometimes you have to lose your pride, but when you can’t do it, you can’t do it.

“As a mother, I just want to give him the best care I can. He’s getting better and is trying so hard that we would hate to have to stop his treatments over money.”

While under Leonard’s care, Joseph has started saying more words and is progressing all the time, Tara said. Leonard is able to serve as many as six children a day in the program, and does so on a one-to-one basis aimed at returning a child to a natural setting. Children are encouraged to develop loving, caring relationships with adults, apply understandings and skills of every day life and increase their range of functional skills across all developmental domains. Joseph usually spends around 15 hours a week in the program.

“We’re very proud of him,” said Leonard. “He has just started talking within the past three weeks. A year ago, he could make sounds where now he is using more words. We just hope we continue that progress.”

In addition to any money generated from the fundraiser, the Turner’s also will be selling note cards and shirts with Joseph’s handprints. Tara said her son loves to paint so the idea to put some of his work on display for the community to share seemed like a natural fit. Tara said she would like to keep Joseph in the program for one more year before she starts home schooling him full-time.

For more information on the fundraiser, call Pizza Inn at 434-2138 or e-mail the Turner family at jturner@northstate.net.

Staff Writer Eliot Duke can be reached at 888-3578, or duke@tvilletimes.com.