Because Em has just brought in the timer and set it for ten minutes, this will be quick! Kind of like speed posting. (Post on Markram interview will have to wait yet another day!)
I posted the following conversation on Emma’s Hope Book page on Facebook last night.
Driving home from the swimming pool. Nic and Em in the back seat.
Nic: Em stop it.
Em: Cha, cha, cha
Nic: Mom! Make her stop. She’s doing that just because she knows how much it annoys me!
Em: Cha, Cha, Cha
Me: Turning around to monitor the situation Okay, Em. What are you doing?
Nic: She’s trying to bug me!
Em: Grinning Cha, cha, chocolate milk!
Me: Oh my god, that’s hilarious. Richard! Putting my hand on Richard’s shoulder. Did you hear that?
Richard: What? What happened? Looks in rearview mirror.
Em: Laughing Cha, cha, cha, chocolate milk
Nic: She just changed it so you guys wouldn’t make her stop!
Em: Leaning toward Nic, gets right in his face Cha, cha, cha, chocolate milk!
Nic & Em begin laughing hysterically.
Not only was the above conversation noteworthy because this type of interaction between Nic and Emma is not typical, but it was also worth mentioning because of Em’s increased interest in word play. I see this in her desire to play Duck, Duck, Goose where she comes up with different word associations. Sometimes, as in the case of “China boat, china boat, ocean!” I’m not clear what the word association is, but I no longer doubt that there is one.
Emma eating her cake
Cloud cover over the Rockies
Walter and friends
Paul
Emma's Hope Book 
Yes, those associations in the minds of autistics. It is where the genius lives in each of us. The ability to see analogies in the world around us, where two different concepts have a finite number of distinct attributes that are exactly the same. Analogies and connections and associations between ideas that might otherwise seem unrelated to the rest of the world. Great revelations can be found in those connections. That is where art meets science and creativity has the power to change the world.
Aspie Kid – this is such a terrific comment. I have read it now several times. It encapsulates everything I am seeing in Em. This is what the world needs to understand about Autism! This is exactly what people are NOT told or understand when their child is diagnosed, but should be! Had someone said THIS, this comment from you, when Emma was diagnosed, if someone had said – Look for this – my thinking, my responses to her, my ideas about her would have been different right from the beginning. For those children who are nonverbal it is the same. I read it in Emma Studer’s letters, in Peyton Goddard’s emails and in her book – I am intelligent, in Amy Sequenzia’s writing. What you’ve just described, it’s all there in those communications. It is poetic beauty!
There were people who did want to say that to you when Emma was diagnosed, but they didn’t know you then and you didn’t know them. But none of this has ever been a secret. Lots of people have known it all along, trying in the their soft-spoken and non-verbal ways to scream out to a society that is deafened by its own noise. The loudest voices in society become the truths that most people believe, and the ones who have the means to become the loudest voices will inevitably create truths that benefit themselves.
The information being spoonfed to the masses costs more than the price they pay to their cable companies and magazine subscriptions. There are millions of parents who have not heard the real truths about autism, or if they have it has all been drowned out by the loud and overbearing messages of mass media. And then they tell two friends, and so on, until somebody else’s “truth” becomes “common knowledge”.
Thank you for this. 🙂
It IS poetic beauty and so many times I felt myself gasp while reading Peyton’s writings…thinking just how beautiful it was. There are times she puts words together that I would have never dreamed of and it is so clear…..adds so much more meaning to what she is conveying to the reader! It’s brilliant!!!! I can’t wait for the day that I can hear Brett’s thoughts like that….I KNOW they are in there! 🙂
I loved this interaction between siblings! It was such a cute story! Erin and Brett are more like that now together….giggling, interacting in their own way. Erin has taken to given him “nuggies” (sp?????) on his head and he just gives her a look! It’s funny because it’s such “brother/sister” thing to do and it warms my heart to see them “back and forthing” like that…….B~
That’s so wonderful Becky! Peyton does, indeed, write beautifully.
Becky, in my opinion, is so right. Because Emma and Nic were interacting in what is typical sibling play with irritation, teasing, laughing, that is what children naturally do. My father, who loved to pun, said that someone who finds unusual connections between words is a genius! Of course he included himself in this comment…who knows?
Anyway I love it. And the photos of Walter, Paul & friend are superb. Three bucks together in a field of daisies. What could be more unexpected? Emma teasing Nic: expect the unexpected, live in the moment and enjoy it.
Gran
“Enjoy it.” Yes!
have you ever looked into auditory integration training? Zack and i are doing it together at the moment! He did it last year, and I’m sure his sentences got longer. . More short sentences than Just phrases. This week . . He rode a bicycle for the first time. The music is pretty nice too 🙂
We did when Em was very young. But there is another type that a friend of mine said she’d email me about that has worked wonders with her nonverbal daughter who is now not only beginning to type, but talk a little too.
Always good to hear when things like this have helped!
Ariane…if it is ok, can you let me know what the program is called when she tells you? Brett does listening therapy at school. Thanks! :O)
Yes, I will email her to remind her. I know it’s not Tomatis.