LEARN HOW CHILDREN WITH AUTISM USE A SINGLE WORD TO COMMUNICATE EVERYTHING
In the previous blog post, I explained why children and/or adults with autism refer themselves in the third person when they speak and explained that it’s not all of them who use this stylistic speaking fashion. It’s those who can speak but not in full speech or complete sentences. Before we dive into today’s topic, let’s go back to the previous one just a little so we can be able to move forward.
If you are following me, you’ll remember that I said when it comes to autism, we have individuals who can speak in full sentences and complete speech, those who speak using short sentences and incomplete speech (aka the third person referral), and finally, those who don’t speak or are non-verbal. We are talking about those children or individuals today.
Now, the reason these children are non-verbal is not that they are mute or dumb. On the contrary, autistic children who are non-verbal can hear but just can’t speak except by saying a few random words here and then occasionally. And sometimes they don’t even know what those words even mean. These may be words they heard somewhere — maybe from someone they’re close to or from the TV and radio. A child would pick that word; memorize it, and soon learn to use it to communicate.
Learn how they compose or come up with these words.
Let me explain how my son composed his. It was 2017, he was six years old and still wore nappies, and after a long time of trying to come up with a way to wean him off it, we finally did. I’m not going to lie; the process took almost six months, but it did pay off.
What we did was — we would put him on the toilet seat and told him what he should do. We first tried to use the word ‘pee’ but spoke in Zulu which means ‘chama’. But for some reason he seemed to struggle to understand it then we decided to use the word that describes the number two also in Zulu and this word was ‘kaka’. Whether it had a nice ring to it or not I don’t know except that he responded better to it and quickly engraved it in his head. But here’s the funny thing: he didn’t say it in the right way, instead of saying ‘kaka’, he said ‘kuka’.
And kuka was born.
We tried countless times to correct him, but our efforts were wasted, and we finally accepted defeat. Kuka was crowned and became his word used for both the number one and the number two. Soon though, he started using it to communicate and we got confused a lot because every time he said it, we thought he wanted to go to the toilet but when we took him there, he did nothing.
One time he looked at me and said it. I grabbed him by the hand, took off his pants, and put him on the toilet seat but he got up, got dressed, stared me in the eye, and said kuka again. He was so persistent and made eye contact, something I’d never seen him do before because autism and eye contact never belonged in the same sentence, but that day he never stopped looking at me and I was like dumbly confused.
He did this for months without me or my mom understand what was happening and we were so frustrated, including him. He would cry, kick and scream because he was trying to communicate using the number two word. Can you imagine? Who would crack such a code?
Morse code SOS kuka!
Then one day during lunch I was preparing him something he didn’t like very much. Correction, he hated what I was making for him. By that time, I had already resigned from my job so I could look after him as his condition was getting more severe, aggressive, and violent. The situation at home was very bad financially because I could no longer afford to buy the food he ate, and that day I had to make bread and tea for him.
Now, remember he doesn’t chew, so, I made the tea in his bowl, let it cool a little and add the bread to it, and gave it to him — or at least tried to. While I was busy preparing that, he stood up from where he was playing with his toys, chanted his mantra, and ran to the toilet. To make the whole thing look real, he even took off his pants and pretended to be doing something there.
I didn’t know what was happening at first and thought he was actually going to the toilet, so, I waited. But after ten minutes I went to check on him and realized that he was just sitting there. I called him out and sat him down which he didn’t even want to do but kept saying kuka. He looked at the food and me and said kuka, but I was not following — and who could blame me? We really fought that day and I lost. He didn’t eat the food, instead, he splattered it all over the kitchen and chanted his mantra like a madman.
I experienced hell that day because he opened the fridge, and the cupboards multiple times looking for his food and there wasn’t, and he was hungry. He started throwing things around and got agitated and irritated. He screamed, he cried, he banged his head on the wall and he slapped himself. It was very sad and heart-breaking watching him do all those things to himself.
The following day I attempted my previous stunt, but he interjected just in time. He snatched the bread from my hand, put it where we kept it, grabbed me by the hand, and took me to the cupboard where I kept his cereal. He opened the cupboard, looked at me, and said kuka again and I stared back at him because like really, what did kuka have anything to do with a cupboard full of cereal?
Kuka was a toilet business word that didn’t relate at all to the scenario in front of me. Then he took my hand and put it on the cereal for me to take, which I did still staring at him, wondering where all this was going. Then he opened the fridge, took out the milk, gave it to me, and said kuka again.
And the scales fell off my eyes!
Then, DAWN came at last! He chose to have cereal rather than bread and tea. I made him that and after he was done, he took his water glass, gave it to me, and said kuka, indicating that he was asking for some water. Then I was like okay! Now I get you. So, kuka isn’t just a toilet business description for you, is it? But it’s your little Morse code.
From there on I started picking on a lot of things he used this kuka word on. He said it when he was hungry, he said it when he was thirsty. He used it in conjunction with taking me by the hand to what he wanted. He even used it when he wanted to go outside or didn’t want to sleep. He used it when he was angry, and when he wasn’t feeling well. He used the kuka word to communicate EVERYTHING EVERYDAY. All I needed to do was observe what he was doing then I would understand what he meant when he was doing it.
So, what does this mean?
It means that every non-verbal autistic child has their own “kuka” word. Others sing a song. I have a friend whose child sings the happy birthday song as his Morse code. Every child has it. All you need to do is pay close attention to it. This begins the moment you notice them repeat that word or song. Then monitor the events where they use it, watch them closely, and follow them and the pathway will soon open. Hopefully, it won’t be as traumatic for you as it was for me.
Do you knnow your child’s little Morse code? Is it a word? Is it a song? If you answer yes, could you share it with us?
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