Local mom, daughter on Autism awareness

A local mother turns to social media to spread awareness about raising a child with autism is a platform she started after her daughter's sailor rose was diagnosed with autism and now this mom is a strong advocate for early intervention, inclusion, breaking stereotypes and so much more Jennifer we've been working on this. I'm finally glad to have you here live in studio with your 4 year-old daughter. Thank you for coming with some for squeezing me into your schedule. I appreciate it. You're welcome Jennifer take me back to the story with sailor when you made the discovery. Absolutely yeah, so sailors 4 years old right now and so around around maybe a little after one about a year and a name say there's not necessarily. She's enjoying. She wasn't responding her name and so I kind of knew that like hey something's going on here so I quickly put her into the Maryland infants and toddlers program and from there she worked with an SLP or speech language pathologist and she kind of gave me that recommendation like hey, you know what you might want to go ahead and get this evaluation for autism. So sailor was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of 2 just right after her birthday. And from there I immediately said hey we've got to get her in all of these strong support systems and so that's where she had the speech therapy and everything which is clearly working for sailor here, yes, yes, yes, thank you so how are you feeling today, sailor. They are good. She feels that much better. I'm much better after seeing you you mentioned to that you are picking up on the side. Yeah, I want to talk to the parents now what are some of the other signs and why should they trust their better judgment that hey maybe we should look into this issue absolutely I want to say the first line is you've got you notice when something is off or something is different. She wasn't talking a lot of children talk they babble sailor wasn't doing any of that she wasn't having any. I you know looking at how we are doing that she wasn't having she couldn't say mom she couldn't say dad. She didn't react to anything I remember one time I had her in the bath and the bath water was cool and she didn't even react to that so I would say definitely when you know something you feel something go ahead and most definitely trust your guide. Say there was an a lot of intense therapy such as speech occupational therapy and apply behavior analysis. So we're looking at pictures here from I guess birthday parties and other events. I saw her out in nature as well. Yeah, some family pictures. Yeah, what has that journey since the diagnosis been like how has she progressed what has been most helpful. Yeah, she's progressed so much. The journey was tough right so in the beginning when I have a diagnosis, it's a heavy diagnosis right. I cried, but I knew that I had to get out of my child's way and so that journey was starting with sign language. She was nonverbal then we move to a device where she could talk on the device. And then after that we most definitely just started entering her into the world. A lot of times when you get the diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder, you know it has to do with a lot of this is so social peace and the communication and I knew I had to challenge her and so getting her out into society was big and listening to her therapist that was huge and I'm sure to as a mother you worry about what life would be like absolutely her especially on times and at times when you're not there exactly so how did you battle those internal feelings and struggles. Yeah, most definitely that was probably the first and foremost thing that I was worried about because I thought what if I'm not here. But I knew that if I could continue to show her that she can be in this world and know that she can make it on her own and having a strong support system. I I'm not it's not necessarily gone the fear, but I do not now have a lot of hope knowing that she will be just fine just fine and have a village she does. Yeah, you made all of those revelations right yourself and you're still growing with her in it. I'm curious to know why did you decide to share it publicly because you could have done all of this without posting without the books the events why do it that way you're so right. I think because I was curious to when I first was starting out I went online looking to find someone that look like say there are 2 year-old with autism and I didn't really see that. I also know when I started talking to other people there was that shame and that stigma and I thought I don't want that what can I do to break that stigma and I have to have the acceptance and create the awareness and hopefully what that would do is have a world right where people when they say I have autism they don't feel embarrassed by that I want this to be where you people here autism and they say how can I support you not all you have autism is there something wrong with you because there's nothing wrong with Taylor, you know, she's different not less. You know definitely she sees the world differently she thinks differently, but she's still a kid. She still likes to have fun. We were in the little kiddie pool yesterday and she said mommy I love you this is so much fun. Yeah, and he's very aware of everything that's going on and that's why it was so important to me to to have her here I believe in one of our first interactions like I want you both yeah because even in television and this platform we need to see the sailors of the world we do we need to see the sailors of the world. You know today, this is a little bit outside of her element, but you know she's playing with mommy's hair kids play with mommy's hair. Yeah, she's seeing she loves that she just recently graduated from applied behavior analysis and that's great. She liked to sing. See there weren't you seeing in this little light of mine. You want to see that the light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. And it is shining. So for people who are watching and they they love sailor already you as well and all that you've done how can they stay connected with you to follow the journey and get this this inspiration that we're sharing today absolutely and that's what I do I share my instagram page at sailor rose s a I y l o r underscore rose and I just want to show that we're a typical family we we have challenges we have wins we could we eat we play we seeing and I really hope that by sharing our story that we break the stigma, you know doing that already. I enjoyed you so much thank you miss Marissa to me here. She put a miss on it. Thank you and thank you. Appreciate you both. Yeah, hugs and kisses.