Point to Point [translation = an eye for the details]

Reluctant as I am, to cast about spurious rumours, [translation = rumors] I feel compelled to correct a few misapprehensions regarding professional persons who therapize my sons. At aged 7 and a half and nearly 6, autistic they may be, but without the ministrations of therapists [translation = early intervention programmes] we would be in an entirely different place. [translation = the funny farm] Their speech delays may be significant [translation = for some people], but they manage to make themselves understood one way or another.

 

Oh excuse me just a mo, [translation = second] someone is reading the screen whilst I type. [translation = one of the challenges [translation = problems] of some autistic children, it that they have 'splinters' of skills. [translation = something that they can do that many 'typical' children do not do i.e. the autistic child does it too early.] Excuse the digression but he won't be budged. [translation = fixates on his area of interest]

“Mind the step dear, that was my toe!” [translation = spatial awarenes isn't a 'strength' at the moment.

“Oopsie. Sorry toe.”

“Now what do you want? Can’t you see that I’m busy typing.”

“Typing? What it is da ‘typing?” [translation = the meaning of many simple words, defeat him, yet although 6, he can read just about anything. {subtranslation = hyperlexic}]

“Watch and learn.”

“Oh! typing is da letters on da screen?”

“Yes.”

“I like dem.”

“Good, thanks so much for sharing that with me. Now, don’t you have something to do yourself, 'play' perhaps?” [translation = always positively reinforce all attempts at communication with your autistic 'non-verbal' child. [translation = even if it's inconvenient and time consuming]

“No fank oo, da 'playing' is da boring for me. I like to watch you doing the working with da letters.” A universal truth I suspect, ‘watching other people work’ that is to say. [translation = 'play' is a new thing around here, we're still learning how to do it. It is not a preferred activity.] “I don fink I am liking doze ones.”

“Really? Why?”

“Coz dey are too, too, too squarey.”

“How about this one? This any better?”

“Yes, it is a bit better, but it is still too, too ‘small’ I am thinking.”

“Very well. How about this? Is this any better?”

“Oh yes! I am liking that one a whole lot betterer.”

“Great, now why don’t you run along and go and count something?”

“What I count?”

“Anything you like.”

“What?”

“How about bounces on the trampolene? That’s a great one, you are so good at your bounces.”

“I fort you said dat I was no good?” [translation = oopsie]

“Hmm, what I actually said was that it would be better if you could put your heels down, rather than jumping on your tippy toes and making your calf muscles lock.”

“Ah. So I am not da bad one?”

“No, you are the best jumper on tippy toes that I have ever met.”

“Fank you. You are a bad jumper though. Oopsie, sorry I hurted your feelings.”

“That’s o.k. now run along and bounce to one hundred. Don’t forget the ‘ands’.”

“But the ‘ands’ are making me tired!” Hardly surprising really, 1 – 100 plus ‘and’ between each number, must be 199 all told. [translation = by my reckoning] Certainly would make my calves ache. [translation = but it 's better than making my brain ache by trying to rise to his high standards of penmanship]