Tuesday 4 October 2016

The Wonderful Mind of Gabriel

I can clearly recall the day we received Gabriel's, official, diagnosis 3 years ago.

G-Dad and I came out of the doctor's office, gun's blazing, ready to face the world and conquer whatever lay in our son's way.

We hired psychologists, therapists, all helping to draw up therapy programs to help Gabriel because the pressure for early intervention is ENORMOUS.  We pursued speech and occupational therapy, with gusto. When time passed and not much progress was seen, we changed therapists, had new programs drawn up, all to help our son cope in this world.  We changed schools, we sold our kidneys, and and and.

That thing called time is a real pain in the ass.  She forces reality to poke you in the side, no matter how much you might knock her down with your sword of courage and determination.  You realise after a while, things may not turn out the way you envisioned or had hoped for.  

But then there are these slivers.  These tiny, wonderful, surprising slivers.

Pick and Pay had a promotional event recently whereby you would receive 4 x animal cards per however much you needed to spend.  You could purchase an accompanying album, but Gabriel being the ipad addict that he is, showed an interest in the app for it.  

You would scan the card, the app would pick it up and show you a certain image if it was already scanned or if you were scanning it for the first time.

Gabriel has the most incredible memory I have ever encountered.  He would scan a card, once, and if he received duplicates on another day, would look at them (not even scan them) and simply throw them out the lounge window.  I would then know those ones had already been scanned.

So on one particular day, I saw him continuously scanning the Babushka card, over and over.  When I went to see what was going on, I discovered the card had already been scanned.  After explaining this to Gabriel, he continued to scan it, over and over.  It was only after closely examining the so-called already-scanned card on the app, did I notice what was different :





Once I explained to Gabriel that the spelling on the app was incorrect, was he satisfied to stop scanning the card.

And that just gave me a wonderful insight into my son's mind - so articulate and detail orientated.  It took me a good minute to spot the mistake!  It probably took him 2 seconds.

It was a great reminder to not assume or presume to know what Gabriel does and does not know, or understand.  

To never, ever, give up.

We are now scouting around for a teacher to teach Gabriel to communicate, via typing/pointing.  It will give him a voice and a further peak into his wonderful mind.  

And we cannot wait!