This is a story full of love, hope and courage.
Alice was diagnosed with autism when she was two years old. Her language, social interaction, and learning abilities are slower than those of ordinary children. She cannot interact with others or make eye contact with others. Noisy sounds and crowds will make her crazy. He even pushes away his beloved relatives and locks himself in silence.
html Thirteen-year-old Alice shows excellent artistic talent, which adds a touch of surprise to her story.
At the age of 5, Alice's paintings were sold at auction for nearly 2,000 pounds. Now she has her own exclusive website, exclusive Facebook , with the attention of more than one million fans, and is a famous actor Angelina Jolie also collects her paintings...
Her paintings not only inspire and touch autistic families, but also bring courage to many people and find stability for themselves. Injecting color into a gray world.
Content｜Alice’s mother (Arabella Carter-Johnson)
Editor｜Hi Naoren
Do you know the story of 52hz whale Alice?
In 1989, the U.S. Navy inadvertently recorded Alice's cry while performing a monitoring mission on an underwater submarine in the North Pacific.
At that time, what was shocking was: The frequency of normal whales is 15 to 25 Hz, but the frequency emitted by Alice turned out to be 52 Hz. To other whales, Alice is like a mute. He could not talk to other whales, he made sounds that no whales could hear, and no whales responded to him.
Therefore, he is called "the loneliest whale in the world".
After Alice’s mother Arabella Carter-Johnson (Carter for short) discovered Alice’s various anomalies, she was like Alice’s companion, unable to hear the child’s voice and unable to read the child’s behavior. In order to enter the world of children, she made efforts and explorations, and finally broke through all the difficulties. Alice interacted and responded to her family.
Therefore, Carter compiled his experiences in the past few years into the book "Alice's Garden of Monet: The Painted Life of a Genius Autistic Girl". We have excerpted some of the essence, hoping to give parents some inspiration.
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1
Alice’s face-to-face consultation diagnosis will still have to wait for a while, after all, the hospital also has a schedule. During the waiting time, we husband and wife were not idle and tried our best to complete all the things that had to be done.
So, I looked through the information related to autism.
I’m trudging through a bunch of proper nouns, feeling like we’re about to be overwhelmed!
Autism spectrum, pervasive developmental disorder, high-functioning autism, picture exchange communication system, applied behavior analysis , structured teaching method, relationship-based model, speech therapy, occupational therapy, sensory integration , physics Therapy, comprehensive auditory training..., Just trying to figure it all out makes me exhausted.
Alice and I seemed to be struggling in a world filled with information that was difficult to understand.
I searched extensively for information on the Internet, bought many books about autism, watched related videos, attended seminars, and was immersed in the theme of autism. Stacks of books are piled next to my bed. There are small pieces of paper I tore out everywhere in the books, and I also use post-it notes to mark the key points.
As far as I know, autism is a difficult disease to describe because the symptoms are different for everyone.Autism has three closely related developmental disorders: Impaired social skills, impaired communication skills, restricted and stereotyped behavior, interests and activities.
Those books include a triangular diagram with three developmental disorders on the periphery, and the overlapping center point of the three is written "autism" .
Autism affects how a person perceives and connects with the world. As soon as they enter the room, the scene before them takes over their senses. They notice small details and everything in the room and see the details as a whole, which means that as long as there are some changes, such as people chatting or sudden movements, they will be unhappy and even want to be alone.
After understanding these qualities, I finally realized that there is a reason for Alice's reaction to her senses. Many of her behaviors are due to reactions to the environment.
For example, she may clap her hands quickly when she is excited or happy. There is a term specifically used to describe this behavior, called "repetitive self-stimulation behavior." She releases energy through repeated actions and allows her to regulate her internal systems.
I understand the symptoms of autism and also know that autism is difficult to cure. It makes me sad to think that Alice will need care for the rest of her life and will probably not be able to speak or live independently.
Adults with autism will lead different lives because they have different abilities. Some of them have great careers, have families of their own, and some live in day care centers and rely on others to take care of them. In short, there are various situations.
Some parents describe going through a period of mourning, saying goodbye to the child they expected. This statement infuriated me. Mourning for Alice? I never thought about it, it felt like we gave up on her.
My insightful, funny, beautiful, curious little girl is here and she needs us to believe in her. This idea keeps me staying up late every night, studying and researching. It’s not that I don’t accept the facts, on the contrary, I know there is a difficult road ahead, but I have to keep a positive attitude. I don’t want Alice to miss out on any of the dreams we have for her, and I will do everything in my power to make sure we give her every possible opportunity.
In short, no matter how difficult it is, we will never give up.
It didn’t take long for us to realize that if we wanted to help Alice, we had to move faster, and we could only do it ourselves. Because everything I've read confirms what I think: Early intervention is very important, and the sooner you start, the better.
2
I have discovered a variety of techniques and treatments that are very safe. I spent hours every night reading about it, and I was able to communicate with Alice through both games.
Furthermore, these therapies resonate with me and sound a lot like the ways I have learned to communicate with horses. The concept is that you are on the same level as the other person, use their "language", and establish a connection with them through non-verbal communication, such as smiling, looking, pointing somewhere, body gestures, and doing things that interest them together. .
Children with autism often miss these beautiful moments of communication, and their communication behaviors are less obvious. It's like horse language that I've learned and I've used this technique on horses, the key is to pay close attention to the body language. All human actions have a purpose and should not be ignored. At first, you have to follow the child's lead and find out what they are interested in. So I observed Alice and recorded all the things that she would examine for a long time, such as nature, toys, the texture, color of objects, or whatever. Things make her jump up and down with excitement.
I concentrated on understanding Alice's activities and understanding what aroused her.
Because of Alice, I tried to experience simple pleasures, such as feeling the texture of objects, sitting next to her and touching the surface of my grandmother's African bronze relief with my fingers. I felt the touch of cool metal, how smooth and pleasant it felt, and how attractive the shape of the object beneath my fingers was. I enjoyed the perfect round shape of the balls in the ball pool, felt the weight of the clay in my hands, and experienced the feeling of sand pouring into my hands. Then, thought about how I could use this information, and based on my findings, came up with activities that would make Alice want to stay and play with me and enjoy spending time with me.
The key is to focus on her strengths and then expand on her abilities. This is a structure established to understand children and tailor a comprehensive plan to their needs.
To me, there are many aspects of this treatment plan that make sense; for example, when a child exhibits certain behaviors and repeats them again and again, there must be a reason behind them. It may be that this child has a special sensory perception system and needs to reorganize the stimuli he receives in a way that is easier for him to process. These activities clearly work better for children than blocking or redirecting them.
Once I understood this, I immediately thought of a way to ensure that Alice had plenty of room to jump up and down. She seems to need to do this, but I don't know why yet.
So we put a mattress in her playroom and a trampoline in my studio.
I divided it into several goals.
The first goal was to reconnect: I had to get Alice to accept that I was around her when she played. She has become increasingly accustomed to pushing people out of her space, sometimes even out of the room she is in. She would almost only hold someone's hand when sending them out, and as soon as she achieved her goal, she would immediately run back to the room.
At first this ploy was funny, but now it has become the norm. So, that’s at the top of the to-do list. Then, I hope we can do something together, focus on the same thing, cultivate "joint attention" behavior.
I will ask Alice to respond to me at first, asking her and me to pay attention to each other and participate together, and then hope that she will gradually take the initiative. It was very important that Alice felt comfortable looking at me, especially my face. Unless Alice can look at me and observe the movements of my mouth as I speak, her speaking skills will never improve. I think her lack of speech is closely related to her autism, and while other babies and toddlers require adult attention and are therefore constantly preoccupied with learning all of their language skills, Alice is unfamiliar with these.
My long-term goal is to do everything I can to open up more opportunities for Alice and encourage her to communicate. I decided to understand Alice in a way I had never tried before. I observed her carefully and tried to understand her world instead of always asking her to fit in with us.
3
Alice is very interested in pencils, pens and crayons and plays with them for several hours every day. The walls of our home are often covered with children's murals and have been repainted countless times. Later, my ideas changed, and I found that this was obviously an interest and expertise that should be encouraged, as long as I figured out how to guide her and let her divert her interest away from the wall.
I found a large roll of wallpaper lining at a local store, cut the sheets to the length of a wooden coffee table, and pinned the ends of the sheets. Alice thought it was a perfect arrangement and would doodle on it for hours. Using several colors, she drew swirls and circles all over the paper, all interlocking and overlapping.
Sometimes she would hum and jump up and down on tiptoes.She even used both hands together, and used both hands to write quickly at the same time, spreading the colors with happiness, freedom and joy. The idea of a table full of paper was a great idea and it finally kept our walls clean for weeks, but unfortunately it didn’t last long.
My eyes followed the crooked blue crayon mark on the wall, extending all the way to the door frame, and then circled back. Alice must have been here not long ago, this wall had been clean a little while ago. Just as I was thinking about how to explain to her "We don't want to paint on the wall" again, I suddenly noticed that her painting style had changed, from strong and rugged mountains, , to soft petal shapes one after another. This revealed that her mood had improved.
I'm always looking for any clues to see if there's anything I can understand and help her with, so I realized this was another good time to make a connection.
I immediately seized the opportunity, threw the cleaning tools aside, and replaced them with paper and pen. We stared at the paper together. I drew a smiley face and then handed her the pen. She giggled, her eyes met mine, and then she lowered her head and drew a straight line, then handed the pen back and pointed at the paper to signal me to continue drawing. I drew a stick figure, and added land, a tree, a bird flying in the sky, and the shining sun on the drawing paper, and told stories while drawing.
We took turns to draw more details on this painting. Alice was very satisfied with this arrangement and was happy for a long time. We just worked well together and got to know each other, and then a car stopped outside, and a heavy door slammed into our world. The interference closed the window of opportunity, and she ran away. The cleaning tools were back in my hands, but my mind was still on the stick figures, wondering what stories I could tell next time.
I wanted to make good use of this new interest to interact with her, so I started drawing and depicting lots of stories where there were just stick figures and funny animals, and it turned out that these stories were very important and could bring Ai back to life. Liz's attention shifted to what I was doing, drawing me deeper into her world.
I am embarking on a new project that I hope will have a positive impact on our lives. I try to juggle career, family life, Alice, and this project, and the small steps we take give me the hope and strength I need.
Art healing allowed Carter to see the light, so she tried animal healing methods. She tried both dogs and horses, but Alice was not interested at all. Later, after the cat Thula came, Alice slowly Slowly he opened himself up, and one person and one cat became inseparable good friends.
With Thula’s company, she slowly gained expression and her talent for painting improved. The painting sold for a high price of 2,000 pounds at a charity auction in London. The tolerance of art allows Alice's closed mind to be accepted and even affirmed through painting.
As a mother, Carter is still exploring and working hard to communicate with her daughter. The child grows very slowly, but she is willing to accompany this little snail, step by step, and move forward slowly.
