Monday, November 1, 2010

Use your voice

Today is Autism Shutdown or Autism Speak Out day. Those on the Shutdown side have decided to stop using all social media in an effect to show what it feels like to on the spectrum and isolated from the world. They are using their silence as an example so those who don't see then will realize there's strength in silence. Those on the Speak Out side have decided to talk about autism as much as possible and use that voice to bring awareness to the subject.

Neither side is wrong they are just using two separate methods to promote the same idea.

I choice to use my voice today.
Because my daughter uses hers.

C1 was non-verbal till elementary school. Years and years of therapy, more speech teachers and hours then i can count and now i have a 12yo who talks in the classical autism way as some like to say. she can go on and on about 1 subject from 2 years ago. its just how her brain works. She's definitely not comfortable talking anywhere outside of home. Until this year she would rarely talk on the phone, talk in school, with peers, just to me, and select family members.

The funny thing about having a non0verbal child is you have no idea what they are really capable of when they can't tell you. C1 learned to read when she was 4. How's that? Computers. Thanks to a nifty little program at her school children got to read a book and then answer questions on a screen about the story. Thanks to a teacher who noticed she preferred to linger in the story time center instead of anything else and let her take one of the tests. she's been reading above grade level ever since. Yet she still only come speak 10 words. without a computer giving her a voice i would have never known this.

She got first computer at age 5, Her own email address and  access to the Internet at age 9. A laptop for the start of 7th grade. She can talk now but ask her to call her grandparents and she'll end up shooting off a long detailed email instead. She found her voice. Typing to communicate is what works for her. Years of battles and frustration she still hates to grab a pen and paper to write because it hurts her hands, but get her on a keyboard and she's in her comfort zone.

Shutdown the one vehicle that give my child comfort and sanity?
What are you mad?

The thins is not everyone who's on the spectrum is non-verbal. Some are very verbal, some in between, some can understand and relate verbal expression much better then written and for others its vice versa. The thing is no two people on the spectrum are the same. Some may be similar, but if you gave every parent with a child on the high functioning end of the bell curve a dollar everything they hear "so is he/she like rainman?" That would pay for lots of the non-covered therapy sessions and a brand new iPad!

So i won't be silenced. My child's story deserves to be told. She's at school right now probably working on a computer right this minute. She will come home pull up her homework on the internet, because most likely she didn't copy it down especially if she forgot her pencil grips.  She will probably play on Free Realms for a while which is a game based social network (lots of typing!)

Either way she needs to be heard. Her voice is her own and her chosen vehicle works for her. Silence isn't working in this house because i spent too many years with it and now she can let it out whenever she wants.


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