We have been working intensively with Emma on her reading, writing, typing and more recently math and verbal skills. The reading, writing and typing program we began in January. It was at this time that she painstakingly learned how to form each letter of the alphabet.
This morning Emma wrote this, in answer to the written question – Did the cat jump? – after I had made the cat jump.
In answering the question – Did the boy jump? (the boy as seen in this photo was lying in a bed) Emma wrote:
In accessing Emma’s progress, I need to compare her to herself and not other children. I have seen over the years how easy it is to become discouraged when I compare Emma to her brother or any neuro-typical child or even other children on the spectrum – unless they are much more severe.
“This isn’t going to be a sprint,” Richard once observed, after seeing yet another neurologist.
And it isn’t. Emma is making slow and steady progress. We work with her for about three hours every day on her literacy, math and verbal exercises. There has been no instantaneous miracle. She has not begun to write on her own in complete, complex and revealing sentences. She has not gotten to the point where she is able to tell us what it is like for her to be her. She cannot answer questions regarding anything remotely abstract. (Which doesn’t mean I don’t continually hold out hope that one day she will. I do.) But at the moment, I am happy to reflect on her slow, steady progress and it fills me with joy to work with her each morning and to see these beautiful sentences that she constructs on her own.
Someone once asked me – Is it good enough?
The idea being that I had a preconceived notion of how I wanted something to be and anything short of that meant it was an utter failure. Sometimes being “good enough” is still pretty fabulous. So yes – Emma’s progress is good enough. In fact, it’s better than good enough, it’s wonderful.
For more on Emma’s journey through a childhood of autism, go to: www.EmmasHopeBook.com
Emma's Hope Book 