Little K has autism. In the scheme of things on the spectrum, authorities would class her as low functioning. She is nearly 11 and doesn't have a lot of words, but she is not what I would class at totally non-verbal, and in the past 18 months her word skills have increased a lot. But a lot of what she says is still hard, very hard to understand.
Like a lot of autistic children (and maybe adults) she get frustrated and acts out, and of course, as she gets older and bigger that can be more of an issue. I know it has caused moments of despair for her parents (my daughter in law K and her ex-hubby R) and for my daughter too. My daughter B became Little K's Aussie Mummy nearly two years ago, and it is so great that Little K has three parents in her life that want the best for her.
Recently I Skyped with my daughter and saw her shed tears because she wants to help K to be able to better communicate and was worried that it might never happen. They were about to meet with Little K's school to look at other ways of increasing her skills and looking at speech programs that could help. But no-one knew how Little K would react, whether she had the skills to understand and if she did how quickly would she learn.
So last weekend I got this video. Little K had learnt she could ask for chips, and was pushing, chips, chips, chips to indicate she wanted more than one chip. B showed her she could push just one more button and get the same message across. It only took her being showed once and this is the result.
Then today I got sent this video. It's short and sweet but you can hear her joy at the end, and now she can communicate so much more and I believe she is also trying to mimic the words as she pushes the buttons.
The journey my Alaskan family is on, will continue to be hard, but I hope above all hope, that small steps like these make it easier, especially for Little K, for though I too have only known her for a short time, she is a beautiful and unique child full of potential.
If this is not inspiring, then I don't know what is.
Thanks for popping by xxx