Young Boy Diagnosed With Autism Was Nonverbal But Now Speaks Several Languages

Dec 01, 2019 by apost team

Having a baby is so exciting, but you never really know how the baby will turn out. All you can do is watch and wait.

Rafael's parents were puzzled when at almost three years of age he hadn't spoken a word. On the advice of friends, they took him to a specialist who diagnosed him with severe non-verbal autism. Unable to accept the diagnosis, they consulted two other doctors who confirmed the diagnosis. His parents agreed the best thing to do was accept the boy and support him so he could become his best self. However, after months of therapy, he didn't seem to be making any progress. The doctors finally suggested letting him randomly surf the net to see if anything caught his attention.

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One day, after watching some videos in Portuguese on Youtube, another video autostarted and sang a song in English. For the first time ever, Rafael showed a happy response. Since then, he has been fascinated with languages and music. Due to his photographic memory, he can rapidly absorb and learn different languages, as detailed here in a report at The Daily Mail. At age seven, he speaks more than nine languages. He mostly uses English to communicate, which complicates things since he lives in Brazil where everyone speaks Portuguese. However, his parents say he feels most comfortable in English so they support his use of it.

When learning a new language, he focuses intently on it until he has mastered it, and then it's time to move on to the next language. He's also a master of music. He plays the piano, xylophone, and drums. He is currently trying to learn how to compose songs and wants to play music to people in the park. His parents say having a child with autism taught them that they need to see the world from a different perspective. That all children have some kind of potential, and all their parents need to do is support the child.

Go Rafael! This is a wonderful story to bring up over the holidays and forward to everyone you know.