Yesterday I watched a documentary, I Want My Little Boy Back, on Astro TVIQ, about Jordan, a 5 year old boy who is autistic and how his family cope with it and what measures they took to overcome autism. I have been waiting for this documentary for a month now, since they started showing the preview in August. Some of you may already know that Nadiah is mildly autistic and I have written about this. It is heartwrenching to see the boy struggling with everyday activities and sounds and sights, and connect that with Nadiah. And yet I feel comforted that these people went through what I have, or is still going through. Although I am ever thankful that Nadiah's case is not so severe. On the scale of 1 - 10 of how bad his autism is, Jordan is a 6. He is not too severely autistic but there were a lot of things that he could not cope with. Nadiah I would say she was a 4 or a 5. Now after a lot of therapy, I would say she has improved to a 3 even on her worst days.
Jodan's parents took him to the US to treat him with one of the many styles of treatment s which they thought was most suited to him. I learned something important then. They believe that if you cannot get the autistic child to live in your 'world', then you should join them in their's. An autistic child finds it hard to understand everything that goes around them and it scares them and so they tend to seclude themselves into their own world where everything make sense and stays the same. Often you find them giggling about something or just staring into space. When you "force" them to join you, they would start to retaliate. They get scared and frustrated and would lash out and cry and basically push you even further afar. So when Jordan starts running around or bite his hand or squishing himself under the table, the therapist did the same . They just do whatever Jordan did to show him that it's ok to do stuff like that. And soon enough they were able to get his trust and slowly teach him the correct way of doing everything and pretty much have a communication where he would actually listen to them. If you try to reason with a child who is kicking and screaming at you, you can be sure nothing is taken in. Anyway, that have me thinking that Nadiah responds to the same thing. Once upon a time when Nadiah was younger she would carry with her all her favourite things everywhere she went. It was ok if it's just 2 or 3 things like her stuffed cat and a book. But when she decided to carry 5 hardcover books, a box of crayons, a box of colored pencils, some building blocks, 4 - 5 cats and teddy bears in all different shapes and sizes, all into this one big basket that even she could hardly carry them, that's just ridiculous. She would lugged around this basket everywhere and when I say everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE!! To her bed, to the bathroom, in the car and out shopping. I would tell her "No, you can't take that with you" and try to take it away from her and she would start to cry and scream at me. It used to get me really frustrated. After a long while I just let her be. If she wants to take the whole play room with her, so be it. Pretty soon she would start to leave her things behind in the room or in the car. And now whenever she brought something with her and I would nicely tell her to please leave them in the room, she would just drop everything without a blink and walk out. As easy as that.
Here's Nadiah with 2 teddy bears, 1 baby lamb and 2 pianos
Nadiah's 4th birthday... don't forget the cat!!
This time carrying a big cat, a baby lamb and a piano
Another with a cat, a VCD, a book and a container full of domino bricks
I guess from now on I'll be doing a lot of jumping on the bed, throwing toys around everywhere in the room and spilling water on the carpet. All in the hope that she would stop doing them. Yeah, right!!! That'll be the day when Mama starts jumping on the bed with Nadiah. The bed will break!!
Jodan's parents took him to the US to treat him with one of the many styles of treatment s which they thought was most suited to him. I learned something important then. They believe that if you cannot get the autistic child to live in your 'world', then you should join them in their's. An autistic child finds it hard to understand everything that goes around them and it scares them and so they tend to seclude themselves into their own world where everything make sense and stays the same. Often you find them giggling about something or just staring into space. When you "force" them to join you, they would start to retaliate. They get scared and frustrated and would lash out and cry and basically push you even further afar. So when Jordan starts running around or bite his hand or squishing himself under the table, the therapist did the same . They just do whatever Jordan did to show him that it's ok to do stuff like that. And soon enough they were able to get his trust and slowly teach him the correct way of doing everything and pretty much have a communication where he would actually listen to them. If you try to reason with a child who is kicking and screaming at you, you can be sure nothing is taken in. Anyway, that have me thinking that Nadiah responds to the same thing. Once upon a time when Nadiah was younger she would carry with her all her favourite things everywhere she went. It was ok if it's just 2 or 3 things like her stuffed cat and a book. But when she decided to carry 5 hardcover books, a box of crayons, a box of colored pencils, some building blocks, 4 - 5 cats and teddy bears in all different shapes and sizes, all into this one big basket that even she could hardly carry them, that's just ridiculous. She would lugged around this basket everywhere and when I say everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE!! To her bed, to the bathroom, in the car and out shopping. I would tell her "No, you can't take that with you" and try to take it away from her and she would start to cry and scream at me. It used to get me really frustrated. After a long while I just let her be. If she wants to take the whole play room with her, so be it. Pretty soon she would start to leave her things behind in the room or in the car. And now whenever she brought something with her and I would nicely tell her to please leave them in the room, she would just drop everything without a blink and walk out. As easy as that.
Here's Nadiah with 2 teddy bears, 1 baby lamb and 2 pianos
Nadiah's 4th birthday... don't forget the cat!!
This time carrying a big cat, a baby lamb and a piano
Another with a cat, a VCD, a book and a container full of domino bricks
I guess from now on I'll be doing a lot of jumping on the bed, throwing toys around everywhere in the room and spilling water on the carpet. All in the hope that she would stop doing them. Yeah, right!!! That'll be the day when Mama starts jumping on the bed with Nadiah. The bed will break!!
3 comments:
Yeah...guess now we can do whatever our kids did in the name of science huh?? Bring everything, jumping up on the bed..bless
hang tu alasan lah tuh nak buat perangai sama macam nadiah tuh ... bukan apa, dah lama tak lompat ataih katil dah tu dah lama tak buang ayaq saja saja ataih carpet tuh!! :P
3?? Memang dah improve banyak lah tu dr 4 or 5 kan?
Iza: hehe.. anything for science...
CA: lupa nak habaq... 1=very mild autism, 10=severe autism... so kira improve banyak la. Very encouraging and hopefully dia buleh pi mainstream school nanti.
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