Christmas is primarily a children’s day and as December 25th approaches, our thoughts turn to those who are less fortunate and how to make Christmas not just a time or a season, but a state of mind. Loving and giving is the true spirit of Christmas and the story of Rosa and her nephew Rino embodies this spirit.

The protagonists of this Christmas story are the Italian chemical engineer Rosa Francesca and her beautiful nephew Rino. Rino is a special child, intelligent, sweet, and curious; a child who has decided to build a secret world with his imagination, where all the things that annoyed him could not reach him. Then, one day she discovered that he had something called autism, and his family and especially his aunt Rosa, the sister of Rino’s father, has helped him with courage and patience ever since.

The number of children affected by Autism Spectrum Syndromes increases considerably year after year. In fact, it has gone from 1 child every 150 in the 2000s to 1 child out of 54 in 2016 (CDC data – Center for Disease Control in Atlanta). According to some, this increase can be attributed to changes in diagnostic criteria, the increase in the screening of psychological development carried out at an early age, greater awareness of autism among health professionals, parents, and the public, and better access to services and to early diagnoses.

The word autism, derived from the Greek autòs, which means oneself, was used for the first time in psychiatry by Eugen Bleuler to describe one of the symptoms of schizophrenia, consisting of the withdrawal into oneself characteristic of some phases of the condition.

In 1943 Leo Kanner, a German pediatrician who emigrated to America, used the term „precocious infantile autism“ to describe a complex of symptoms (a syndrome) present in a group of 11 children.

The fact is that autism is one of the most complex and, in the most serious forms, difficult-to-manage syndromes that emerge in the developmental age. Boys and girls with autism have significant difficulties in mutual interaction, communication, and play activities. Verbal language, when present, is often not appropriate to the context, with little use of communicative gestures. Play activities are mostly of a repetitive type, with isolation from the peer group. Other characteristics of autism are difficulty in expressing one’s feelings and in reading the feelings of others (Theory of Mind), different sensitivity to environmental stimuli (e.g. a hypo or hypersensitivity to noises and tactile or gustatory sensory stimuli), and a deficit of the imagination.

Pic from Activebeat

A parent or in the case of the „auntie“ Rosa, begins to make flights of fancy for the future of that little one he has in his arms. You don’t even start walking before I teach you to recognize constructions with one, two, or three joints. And what happiness when you tell him „Rino take the deuce“ and he runs to you bringing you the right piece.

Then, suddenly, Rino no longer listens to you. The dark and the cold falls inside you until it destroys you.

But you have to react, you have to do for his good to recover everything that can be recovered, at any cost. First of all, he also fights against the institutions. React as Aunt Rosa did.

We begin with speech therapy and psychomotricity as dictated by the antiquated protocols at the Affiliated Centres. Affiliated Centers because Autism is bad for the families who have the problem but it is very succulent for the Centers that provide therapies, thousands and thousands of euros a year, most of the time without any results, paying the therapists cheaply. You bring the three-year-old in a diaper and after a year you bring him back in a diaper!

But resignation is not part of Rosa’s character.

Thanks to friends of hers, Rosa is aware of a very scrupulous doctor from Cava De Tirreni who prescribes the ABA Applied Behavioral Analysis.

ABA is the application branch of Behavior Analysis, the science that deals with describing the relationships between the behavior of organisms and the events that influence it.

Finally, a glimmer of light opens for Rino and his family, Aunt Rosa fixes an appointment for the diagnosis, finds the therapists who still follow Rino.

It begins despite the dissuasions by the institutions. Among various vicissitudes, struggles, demonstrations and even sentences, 30 hours of ABA were obtained in living environments up to the age of 18.

Then? And then does autism disappear? No, the syndrome does not disappear but the support disappears, the therapies disappear, as if an autistic person no longer existed at the age of majority.

Many elderly parents have to contend with the after us! Children and young people affected by autism spectrum syndrome see the world with their own eyes from a different perspective, but this does not mean that they have to live isolated on the margins of society.

First of all, these children and young people possess remarkable qualities of sensitivity, precision, and memory that we don’t even imagine. So why not put their skills to good use to create a future for them?

Rosa Francesca

In this sense, RF2 was born, which stands for Rosa Francesca and Rino Francesca.

RF2 wants to combine the passion that Rosa has had for cosmetics since she was a child with her love for her nephew to create a future for him. He has been working on this project for years.

Rosa first obtained the title of Expert in „Ketogenic Diets and Nutritional Therapies, Supplements and Nutraceuticals“ from the University of Salerno, then the Master in Cosmetology and Metabolomic Medicine, to then write and think about the functionals to be used in my products.

So after years of studies and experiments, RF2 Cosmeceuticals by Rosa Francesca was born at the beginning of October 2022, which markets products with its own brand produced by excellent series and companies in the Campania region and beyond, with the aim for 2023 of on the market with a line of nutraceutical supplements.

RF2 Cosmeceuticals formulates and markets only natural products, without petrolatum, silicones, and parabens and with a concentrate of functional substances chosen to interact synergistically with each other to amplify the results.

A story of the love, determination, commitment, and stubbornness of Rosa and Rino which gives hope and desire not to give up to all those families who can recognize themselves in the situation of Rino’s family. Christmas is not an external event, but a story to be donated.

Text Annalina Grasso