Author: Anjali Barretto| February 20, 2021
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has many faces, some harder to cope with than others. Read on to hear about how a little girl’s frustration becomes more manageable, and a little quieter. One day at a time…
Working as a Speech Therapist at Sethu, I am blessed to be exposed to all sorts of challenges in the area of communication development. Every day I experience the joy as well as the frustration with little ones (and not so little) wanting to express themselves in my therapy room.
I would like to share the success story of a bright 4.4-year-old little girl whom I had the short privilege of working with on her delayed language skills post her diagnosis of autism. Let me add here that her language skills are now age-appropriate! AT one point, this little one used to scream unexpectedly in class and her ‘unconventional’ behaviour was attributed to her not liking school. But as her communication developed this behaviour soon disappeared.
Her super mum shared that recently her child was attending online classes and the other children were chatting, suddenly this little star opened her mouth and screamed, which is now so unlike her. Mum thought she had taken a step back, but when she was asked why she did so, she shared that, ‘I used to scream like this last year when the children in my class would make too much noise and it would hurt my ears’.
Her communication has given us such invaluable insights into a trigger to her behaviour. The fact that the classroom chatter would ‘hurt her ears’ was something that had never crossed my mind!
She now also tells her mum that she will now use her words and not shout anymore! The power of navigating the many roads of communication!
ANJALI BARRETTO
Head – Child Development Centre