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A Mother's Courage: Talking Back To Autism

Margret Ericsdottir is the mother of Keli Thorsteinsson, a severely autistic non-verbal boy. All the doctors and specialists who saw her son told her there was no hope for him, they told her he has the mind of a two year old and he will have it for the rest of his life and that he will need to be institutionalized.

His mother refused to accept it and went to a journey to try to unlock the mind of her son. She traveled across the US to look for the best specialists in autism and try to get answers. It is recorded in the HBO documentary called "A Mother's Courage: Talking Back To Autism".

Margret heard there was a treatment in Texas that could help non-verbal autistic children learn how to communicate using a letter board and the unexpected happened. The first three words her son wrote was : "I am real".

British actress, Kate Winslet heard the story and gave voice to the documentary. She also co-found with Keli's mother: "The Golden Hat Foundation" Which aim is to make people realize that non-verbal autistic children are as intelligent and capable as any other regular person and they just need us to "Unlock" Them.

In one of her presentations, Kate is seeing with several non-verbal autistic teenagers who also use letter boards and they're talking like regular teenagers, telling her things like "All my life, no one gave me the simple wish of communication" Or "I want to rent your movies!" Or "You are beautiful!".

In a part of this documentary, Keli tells his father that the "Words just couldn't come out from his mouth". It is interesting because when our oldest son Felipe (Now fully verbal) was young and he was unable to speak, he told me that he could understand everything around him but for some reason the words just couldn't come out even though he knew the words in his mind. Same exact thing Keli said.

Stay tuned because I will blog more about this at Source 5

Autism To Talking Courage Mothers A

What a wonderful story! There is hope! No matter what doctors or scientists or people tell you, hope it's the last thing a parent should lose. You never give up on your children no matter how adverse are the circumstances!