{"id":530,"date":"2025-10-03T16:49:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T16:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/?p=530"},"modified":"2025-10-03T16:49:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T16:49:47","slug":"the-father-apologized-mind-if-i-try-something-by-the-end-of-the-flight-it-clicked-he-was-astounded-dad-nearly-cries-after-speech-pathologist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/?p=530","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The father apologized. \u2018Mind if I try something?\u2019 By the end of the flight, it clicked. He was astounded.\u2019: Dad \u2018nearly cries\u2019 after speech pathologist teaches autistic son to communicate on plane for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI just had such an affirming experience.<\/p>\n

On my 8-hour international flight back from a conference, I sat next to a father and son. In broken English, the father began to apologize and warn me that his 10 year-old son had severe nonverbal autism, and that this would likely be a difficult journey.<\/p>\n

I told him not to worry, I was a speech-language pathologist with lots of experience with minimally verbal kiddos. Challenging behaviors began even before take off: screaming, hitting me, and grabbing for my things. The father repeatedly apologized, but did little else.<\/p>\n

I asked him how his son preferred to communicate. He didn\u2019t seem to understand. Perhaps this was a language barrier, but I think instead the child had very little experience with communication therapy. I put away the talk I was working on and asked if I could try something. He nodded.<\/p>\n

I tried to see if he was stimulable for a communication board. I started by pulling up some standard images for basic nouns on my computer but I could tell that screens really bothered him. So, I summoned my god-awful drawing skills and tried to create a (very!) low-tech board.<\/p>\n

And by god, it clicked. I made symbols for the things he was grabbing, for his favorite stuffed penguin, and for his dad. He took to it very quickly. I introduced way more symbols than I normally would, but hey, how often do we get an 8-hour session?!<\/p>\n

By the end of the flight, he had made several requests, initiated several times, and his behaviors had reduced quite a bit. The father was astounded \u2013 clearly no one had ever tried an AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) approach with him. I gave him the paper and showed him how to use it, and he nearly cried.<\/p>\n

This was the human desire for communication, pure and simple. To connect with another person and share a thought. Communication is a basic human right, and I was overjoyed to help someone find it. What a privilege and a gift.<\/p>\n

As I face the upcoming job cycle and the nearly endless imposter syndrome of academia, this was precisely the reminder I needed about why I love studying language and communication development. It was a good day to be a speech-language pathologist!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI just had such an affirming experience. On my 8-hour international flight back from a conference, I sat next to a father and son. In<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":533,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions\/533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}