The biggest fear a parent can possible have is that there could be something wrong with their child. A mother spends nine months waiting for a bundle of joy to be born, hoping that they are healthy. In the book “Let Me Hear Your Voice,” author Catherine Maurice, a mother, of not only one but two children with autism, shares her heart wrenching story of trying to find a “cure” for her daughter.
Maurice and her husband embark on a rigorous behavioral intervention program in their home with privately hired therapists while still seeking answers to their questions. Given the time frame of Anne-Marie’s diagnosis I was amazed to learn how many people still believed there was some causal effect of poor maternal bonding in autism. It is a disability that it very hard to understand, especially if you are not aware of exactly what it is. I feel that Maurice did an outstanding job being able to recognize that something was not right with her child. Being able to pick up signs and/or symptoms of autism that your child portrays is sometimes hard for parents because they do not want to perceive there being something “wrong” with their child. Working in the field with adults that have many disabilities such as autism, I find it interesting that parents are either fully determined find everything they can to help their child or they tend to be in denial that their child may need special attention. For Maurice perhaps because both her children were able to have intense intervention so early in their lives, they both recovered to the extent that within a couple of years professional teachers who did not know the children’s history did not distinguish them from “normative” children in any way. Many people do not understand, unless they are in the atmosphere with an autistic person, is that it affects not only the person with it but their families as well! Since being given the chance to work with people with disabilities, what the public does not realize is that about ten percent of people with autism are high functioning with gifts such as photographic memories, high math abilities as well as savants, which I find completely remarkable! Let Me Hear Your Voice does not tell readers how her children are doing now, but I hope that with all the help she had provided for them that her children are in the high functioning ten percent.
Every parent wants to do as much as they can to help their child, money should not be an issue, and yet it is for so many. “Let Me Hear Your Voice” certainly gives parents with autistic children hope at a time when they desperately could need it. I would encourage any special needs parent to read it for the sheer inspiration to keep on doing their very best for their children.
