Playing With A Friend

Today marks another milestone in Nadiah's improved social skills. Today, for the first time ever, my special girl made the initiative to ask her cousin to play with her. All on her own! No prompting was needed. We didn't even ask her to play with her little cousin, Irfan. All of a sudden, while holding on to a ball, she turned to Irfan and said, "Catch".

We were so surprised. And Irfan was such a champ because he quickly ran to fetch a basket to catch the ball Nadiah was ready to throw to him, ever willing to play with 'kakak Nadiah'.

Syukur alhamdulillah. Praise be to Allah for this memorable moment. I am ever thankful for every little improvement that Nadiah shows.

What Is Nadiah Writing?

Last night when I told Nadiah to go to sleep, she refused. Too busy concentrating writing on a piece of paper.

I was curious as to what was taking much of her attention, so I went to investigate.

This was what I found:

Nadiah's Obsession With DVDs & VCDs

Ever since she was small, Nadiah likes to collect VCDs. It started out with Barney & Friends, then to Sesame Street, Hi5 and whatever else that she likes to watch. At that time they come mostly in VCD versions. Only the past few years that these videos come in DVD versions. Or as Nadiah would call them "small CD" and "big CD". 

She has tons!! I mean, literally tons!!! In the beginning, I would buy them for her, and as kids are known to do, she would take the discs out of the casings and carry 20 or 30 at a time everywhere she goes, in an obsessively particular order that we are NEVER, EVER to try and mess around with them. She would remember which disc come first, second, third and so on. 

Over the years, she has lost, scratched and broken many, many discs. When she was a little bit older, around 7 years old, she starts to care for her CDs and would obsessively keep them in the right boxes and, when she realized that most of her discs are gone or broken and deemed unworkable, she would bug me and her baba to get new ones. But now she's more careful, keeping her CDs in proper order and taking good care of them. 

But now that her videos are out in DVD versions, she wants those too. Honestly, I can't even remember what VCDs she has or hasn't. I have to take pictures of her collection so that I don'y buy the same ones, which I had done countless times already. 

Making a tower of her CDs

Fixing something on her CDs. That's only part of her collection. She has many, many more..

We encourage her in this obsession because they help for in a lot of things, like her language, simple everyday tasks, playing games and reading and writing. Because of Nadiah's lack of cooperation in communicating with people, these videos of hers has increased her social and communication skills tremendously. 

She likes to write down the titles of the CDs, the names of characters in each of the episodes of Barney and Sesame Street and list down the titles of the songs that you get in Barney videos. Before, she would write down on a paper, now she would type out in in the computer using Microsoft Power Point program. She loves making lists... just like her mama.. :D

Nadiah's "books". 

This is her "Memory Book", which she copied out of one of the episodes of Barney. There are hand prints of the characters (which mama and baba had to contribute), photos which I printed for her from scenes in the video, and titles of Barney videos. 

This is another of her book, which I have not compiled and bind because it's an ongoing project. You can see that she has written down the title of a particular video and the names of the characters that appears in that particular episode. Look how thick it is. That's how much she has been writing!

Another story that I would like to tell, which is related to her CD obsession, happened a few days ago. Usually Nadiah would check on the internet what new titles are there in the market, either for Barney or Elmo's World or Sesame Street or Play With Me Sesame, or what other titles are not in her collection. Then she would tell us what she wants. Bugging us to go out to the CD shops and get them. Not understanding that the shops may not have what she wants or going to the same shop the very next day does not mean that they would magically appear. So anyway, the other day she told me, "Mama, Elmo's World Happy Holidays, small CD". I understand that she wants that particular CD but she wants it in the VCD version.

So we were in KL at MPH Mid Valley, and she was looking around the educational CD section when suddenly she grabbed a DVD and showed it to me. 

"Mama, Elmo's World, big CD." She had this crushed looked on her face. 

"I want small CD" she told me. 

I know she was feeling frustrated. Probably because she was so close to getting what she wants. Only the size of the box of CD was wrong. My poor girl!

But I was happy because she could tell me verbally; one, what she wanted, and secondly, that what's out there was not what she wanted. Rather than getting upset and throwing tantrums and I'll be lost to her wants and feelings, which is what would have happened a long time ago. 

I am actually thankful for her obsession with her videos. She is communicating a lot more, not just with us but also with the people around her. 

So if you have any old Barney or Sesame Street VCD/DVDs to dispose, please let me know. I would gladly take them off your hands..

Seminar Celik Al Quran Bagi Anak-Anak Autisme

Last Saturday I went to a seminar on “Celik Al Quran Bagi Anak-Anak Autisme” which was held at Wisma R&D, Universiti Malaya. The seminar was jointly organized by UM’s Centre of Quran Research and Autisme Malaysia (a FB group).

Incidentally, me and hubby have been looking for ways on how to teach Nadiah the Al Quran. So when I saw that the seminar was to be held then, we decided to attend even though it was already Friday. We decided to leave for KL that afternoon after Jumaat and arrived in Bangsar at 9.30pm.

On Saturday, I went to the seminar and was totally blown away by the kids who could not only read the Quran, but also memorize. I wish I had started Nadiah early on and I am now worried that it could be too late for her.

But nothing is ever too late. To pursue knowledge, age matters not. Anytime and anywhere is just as precious.There was one boy, who is about the same age as Nadiah. He started reciting the Quran by listening to the ayats repeatedly. Which is one of the methods of introducing the Quran to an autistic child. All these while I have always been rigid in my method of teaching something from the basics, which is teaching the ABC before reading. So does the method of teaching alif ba ta before reading the Quran. And I have been looking for ideas on how to introduce the method to Nadiah. And now I’m kicking myself (figuratively and not literally, mind you). Why didn’t I think of that. It’s something so simple. It’s not that she hasn’t been doing the same thing for everything else anyway. I was worried that it would be too difficult to learn alif ba ta, then spelling the kalimahs and go on to teaching the tajweed. I mean, why not just make her memorize the Quran with perfect mahraj and tajweed from early on. Problem solved!

So that was one of the things that I learned from the seminar, among other things. There was also a very touching video that was shown which captured the hearts of everyone and brought realization to the words of Allah. Why do we read the Quran? Why do we believe in Allah? I’ve attached the video below. Every time I watched the video I cried..

Subhanallah.. Allahu Akbar..

My Autism And Me