First Words

Silent Gestures

Have you ever had a little child look into your eyes, their expression pleading to communicate something they cannot verbalize? I experienced years of those silent gestures, where my son Johnny wanted to speak, to communicate, to be understood, but only made unintelligible sounds, much of that time accompanied by screams of frustration.  Can you imagine what it must be like to have an intelligent mind and be locked inside it, unable to communicate?

A Long-Awaited Moment

The day I finally heard the words “I love you” was unforgettable. It marked the end of a long wait to hear anything at all. Yet, even after that breakthrough, more words came excruciatingly slowly.

Understanding Johnny’s Challenge

I should emphasise here that Johnny is highly intelligent and broke out of his prison by watching cartoons, replaying sentences endlessly until he understood their meaning.  Even after making breakthrough after breakthrough by himself as a toddler, Johnny was still inside his own prison.  We came to understand that Johnny could understand everything we said and everything he heard perfectly.

It dawned on me that Johnny’s struggle wasn’t with knowing the words in his mind but with expressing them aloud. He could arrange magnetic letters to spell out words like “Airplane” long before he could articulate them verbally.

Basically, he could not make the conversion from thought to speech.

What expert made that diagnosis?  Me – his mother.