raising a non-verbal autistic child your story

Raising a child with autism can have its own set of complications, but raising a non-verbal, autistic child is a whole different challenge. For the Melo Family, it means raising a son and brother, who can never fully express his pain, needs, or frustrations. To help with Felipe Melo’s complications, his family has built a system of caretakers, who have worked with him to improve his communication skills. But even with this success, there’s no guarantee it will be a lasting solution. Produced in partnership with students from the University of Miami.

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Unknown Speaker 0:00

mean your nonverbal child means a lot more than words. It means your son cannot express his frustration. It means your son cannot express his needs. He doesn't express pain as, as the other kids do. getting hurt, did it hurt and not being able to communicate this for a mother initially, it's an undescribable feeling.

Unknown Speaker 0:32

Through the first few years, we saw minimal changes, because I guess we were more focused on ourselves on how we were going to deal with it. But throughout the past, I'd say five years, ages five through 10. He started speaking in complete sentences, especially the last two years and now he came to request not in full phrases but in more simplistic forms. Like I want iPad I want Apple with you start off with that. And at first you couldn't even say I want course,

Unknown Speaker 1:00

please. Yeah, makes ASCII pretty big started in several therapies when he was diagnosed. The most important ones were ABA and speech therapy. This way, good looking. I five. Very good. What do you want? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 1:22

I want people nice asking. The raffia Casella down. A preview county da da da da La sobre como se mobile mighty la casa al clinic as in early mass as therapy at the end of the day, in the case of standard lavabit assume Baraka silhouette, cuando se, movie, movie, I want

Unknown Speaker 1:47

movie, movie.

Unknown Speaker 1:51

therapy. It was one of the most important things that happened in Philippe's life.

Unknown Speaker 1:58

Now a we have a better communication when assessing problems that he has such as a head a key point said he knows how to how to complain, to sort of show us why he's angry or why he's mad or why he said, through a

Unknown Speaker 2:11

therapy, he was taught self control, he was taught resistance. He was taught acceptance of frustrations.

Unknown Speaker 2:23

I feel like he's changed my life in a way that obviously I've never expected. But I feel like I have a bit more empathy for people with mental health conditions, especially because I because I live with someone that has it.

Unknown Speaker 2:36

We were told by a specialist that Philippi could gain some or a lot of speech, and he could read ress at any time. At that moment, we learned not to have expectations for the future, per se. While we really happy to earn every day effort to have him be the best that he can. So the future is every tomorrow

Transcribed by https://otter.ai