December 22, 2008
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Noah vs. The Autism
In the ongoing battle of “Noah vs. The Autism”, so far Noah is winning…
Many parents wait, hope, and pray that some day their autistic child will utter just a few words…maybe it’s “Mama” or “I love you” or some simple phrase like that.
If you are one of those people, my heart goes out to you. Communication with your child is precious…the ability to say “I want this” or “I’m sad” is something we too often take for granted.I am extremely thankful that our son’s speech has absolutely exploded in this past year. Not only is Noah talking very well, he is communicating about emotions, ideas, observations, and several other abstract concepts that a 5 year-old that was diagnosed with mild to severe autism only 3 years ago would not normally be able to describe. The detail of Noah’s speech is fantastic. He is almost able to communicate with us about anything he wishes…even if it is a slightly odd manner, (Shakka, when the walls fell).
Beyond Noah’s ability to communicate, he is developing the ability to function very well in normal circumstances. His growth in school is astounding. Again–the fact that he is in a general ed. classroom is just mind-blowing.
On top of that…today was a huge milestone for our dear one.
He sang a SOLO in our church’s production of “The Christmas County Spelling Bee”, and kicked butt doing it (if I say so, myself).
I have a still pic here, but I video-taped it and will upload it as soon as possible for all of the interwebs to see…
We are very thankful and blessed that Noah is making so much progress, and quite proud of his performance today. What a guy!!
Comments (6)
Amazing.
That child touches my heart.
I don’t really know anything about autism. The only thing I have heard is that autistic children are really smart at things that non-autistic children/people have a hard time doing, but aren’t able to do some ‘normal’ things like tie your shoes; something they really struggle with. Can you sum up what makes an autistic child different from others??
@andilynn77 - Hm…I don’t know if I can sum it up for you…Autism is a disorder that has a WIDE spectrum on the range of impairment.
However, on the most part, a child with autism has significant delays in speech, the ability to learn & communicate, and ability to interact with others. A person with autism might not be able to speak or make eye contact…and gosh…there are a thousand symptoms…I could barely do the disorder justice with my feeble attempts to explain it. You’d probably be better off googling it or something.
Additionally, the type of autism you are referring to is labeled “savant”. This folks are the ones that are abnormally advanced in a certain skill (like the Rain Man movie). However, this is a small population of those diagnosed with autism.
Happy researching!
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra! Thanks for the ST:TNG reference. I’m such a nerd. Praise God for Noah and all he can do! And for great parents that enable him to do it all…
Hey, did you post the video? Link to it already!
It was precious beyond words!!! Praise God for His blessings and we are so thankful for the blessing of having Noah and Nathaniel as a part of our church family!