Annabelle

Annabelle...I first met her during my second week working at the autism center. Petite, light brown hair cut to her shoulders and tousled about, a cute little slightly turned up nose, I guessed her age to be about 4, but she might be 5 and just be small for her age. Annabelle doesn’t talk at all. But she cries often, in frustration, in anger, in I don’t know what else. That first day she came to me crying so hard, so I took her in my lap, and holding her close I began helping her place plastic close pins back into a plastic Tupperware container. Sustained attention. This worked for awhile, and her sobs began to subside, but then she got tired of the close pin activity and began throwing them on the floor. Hand over hand I helped her pick them up, since she refused/couldn’t do it on her own, and we moved onto another activity. Little Annabelle has since learned to pick things up off the floor on her own…I watched in awe a couple weeks ago when she got down out of her chair and picked up the puzzle pieces she had thrown on the ground when I told her to. I often wonder what goes on inside her head, what she’s thinking, how she really sees the world. She likes to lick things...lick puzzle pieces, shapes, books, etc. This is a sensory activity for her, but what does she get out of it? I wonder this so often with our kids. How do they experience things? What’s it really like for them???