The Way I See It

So Miss Ruby is still in our room, I haven't moved her to her own room yet because it is right beside Porter's and I just know he will keep her up. Part of me thinks I should just "try it", the other part of me can't risk losing any more sleep if she wakes up. And really, we are moving next week anyway so there isn't much point to switching things up right now. ( yes, in case you didn't know, we are moving...but I'll talk more about that later). I've learned how precious sleep is since I became a momma. I fantasize about sleep actually. Anyway, that is not my point at all...

Because Ruby is in our room I have been doing a lot more reading at night (turning pages is not that noisy:) Right now I am reading  The Way I See It  by Temple Grandin. I have read one of her other books, Thinking in Pictures already and found it fascinating! Temple is brilliant and she just so happens to have autism as well. I am enjoying this book even more, she offers so much insight into the mind of a person with autism and has literally helped me change my way of thinking about autism in general.

Last week I read something in this book that has stayed with me for days. Let me share it with you.

" As a society, we equate intelligence with language. Smart people are verbal people; verbal people who can express themselves better than most are assumed to be even more intelligent. People who can't use language well are perceived as dumb. We don't usually stop and question whether oral motor skills, rather than intelligence skills, might be causing the language impairment. No, we do just the opposite and almost instantaneously judge the nonverbal person as being mentally impaired. Poor kid / adult, he can't talk. And in our minds we continue with the most damaging thought of all: and therefore he has nothing to say".

Do you feel a little guilty? I know I did. I am ashamed to admit it, but part of me used to believe this on some level. And I should know better. Me of all people! I have often said I need speech therapy.  It is worse when I'm tired ( which is basically all the time now) but even when I have had a decent night's sleep, I often struggle trying to get my thoughts out verbally. Sometimes it is that I have a million thoughts in my mind at once and I want to get them all out, other times it's that I can't think of the word I am looking for (there is a name for that, but go figure, I can't think of it!) And I absolutely consider myself an intelligent person.  I'm not a member of Mensa or anything but you wouldn't believe the information I'm storing up in this melon of mine!

 And to make matters even worse, I am an educator. I have worked with non-verbal children and now feel terrible that I lowered my expectations of them. Shame on me. Shame. On. Me.

After my reading, I was reminded of a story my dear friend Crystal sent to me about a girl named Carly a few weeks back. Here is a short video if you would like to meet this extraordinary young lady.


 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHPsc08WQkw


Makes you think doesn't it? I can't believe how much Porter has taught me already and I simply can't wait to hear everything that he has to say.

:) Chat soon, Raelene