"Look at me!"
“看着我!”
That phrase turned me into an eye-contact coach. I'm the mother of Ivan; he's 15 years old. Ivan has autism, he doesn't speak, and he communicates through an iPad, where his whole universe of words exists in images.
这句话把我变成了一个 眼神交流方面的专家。 我是伊万的母亲,他今年15岁。 伊万患有自闭症, 他不说话, 他用一个iPad来交流, 由此,他的语言可由图像组成。
He was diagnosed when he was two and a half. I still remember that day painfully. My husband and I felt really lost; we didn't know where to begin. There was no internet, you couldn't Google information, so we made those first steps out of sheer intuition.
当他两岁半的时候就被诊断患病。 那天的记忆依旧刺痛着我的心。 我和我的丈夫感到很迷茫, 我们不知道能做些什么。 那时候还没有网络, 你无法Google想要的信息, 所以,我们刚开始的行动 全凭直觉。
Ivan would not maintain eye contact, he had lost the words that he did know, and he didn't respond to his name or to anything we asked him, as if words were noise. The only way I could know what was going on with him, what he felt, was looking him in the eye. But that bridge was broken.
伊万不肯与我们眼神交流, 他会忘了那些他听得懂的词汇, 他不能对他的名字或是 任何我们问他的问题作出响应, 就仿佛语言只是噪音。 我想知道他怎么样、 感受如何的 唯一办法, 就是与他对视。 但是这唯一的桥梁也被阻隔了。
How could I teach him about life? When I did things he liked, he would look at me, and we were connected. So I dedicated myself to working with him on those things, so we would have more and more eye-contact moments. We would spend hours and hours playing tag with his older sister, Alexia, and when we said: "I caught you!" he would look around for us, and at that moment, I could feel he was alive.
我该如何教会他生活呢? 当我做他喜欢的事情的时候, 他就会看着我, 这时我们是彼此联通的。 所以我全心致力于 和他一起做这些活动, 这样我们就会有越来越多的 眼神交流的机会。 我们经常会和他姐姐,亚历克西亚一起, 花好几个小时玩贴标签的游戏。 当我们说:“抓到你了!”的时候 他总会环顾四周寻找我们, 在那个瞬间,我能感受到 他是鲜活存在的。
We also hold a record for hours spent in a swimming pool. Ivan always had a passion for water. I remember when he was two and a half, on a rainy winter day, I was taking him to an indoor pool, because even on rainy days we'd go swimming. We were on the highway, and I took the wrong exit. He burst into tears and cried inconsolably, nonstop, until I turned back. Only then did he calm down.
我们还保有泡在泳池里的时长记录, 伊万总是对水充满热情。 我记得当他还只有两岁半的时候, 在一个冬季下雨天, 我带他去了室内游泳池, 因为即使是下雨天 我们也会去游泳。 当我在高速上的时候, 我开错了出口。 他就瞬间大哭起来,不停的喊叫, 直到我回到了原路。 直到那时他才冷静下来。
How was it possible that a two and a half year old didn't respond to his own name, yet in the middle of the rain and fog, where I couldn't see anything, he knew the exact route? That's when I realized that Ivan had an exceptional visual memory, and that that would be my way in.
对于一个只有两岁半的孩子, 他不能对自己的名字作出反应, 在雨雾弥漫, 我什么都看不清的情况下, 他却知道该怎么走? 就是那时,我意识到 伊万拥有的超常的视觉记忆力, 那就是我的切入点。
So I started taking pictures of everything, and teaching him what life was like, showing it to him, picture by picture. Even now, it's the way Ivan communicates what he wants, what he needs and also what he feels.
所以我开始收集各种事物的图片, 并教给他生活是什么样子的, 一张图片一张图片的展示给他看。 直到现在,这仍然是伊万表达 他想要什么, 他需要什么, 以及他的感受如何的方式。
But it wasn't just Ivan's eye contact that mattered. Everyone else's did, too. How could I make people see not only his autism, but see him the person and everything he can give; everything he can do; the things he likes and doesn't like, just like any one of us? But for that, I also had to give of myself. I had to have the strength to let him go, which was extremely difficult.
但并非只有伊万的 眼神交流才值得被关注。 其他人的目光也一样重要。 我如何能让人们看到的 不仅是他的自闭证, 而是他,作为一个独立个体, 他能够给予他人的; 他能做的一切; 他所喜欢的和不喜欢的, 那些和我们一样的方面? 但是想要做到这一点 我也需要敞开自我, 我必须要有勇气放手, 但这也是极其困难的一件事。
Ivan was 11 years old, and he went for treatment in a neighborhood near our house. One afternoon, while I was waiting for him, I went into a greengrocer, a typical neighborhood store with a little bit of everything. While doing the shopping, I started talking to Jose, the owner. I told him about Ivan, that he had autism, and that I wanted him to learn to walk down the street by himself, without anyone holding his hand.
伊万11岁的时候, 他到我们邻里的一家诊所接受治疗, 一天下午 当我正在等他的时候, 我走进了一家绿色食品店, 就是那种街头常见的 什么都有的小店。 当我选购商品的时候, 我就开始和店主侯赛聊起天来 我跟他说了关于伊万的事情, 关于他患有自闭症, 还有我希望他能够独自走过这条街, 不需要谁去牵着他的手。
So I decided to ask Jose if Thursdays around 2pm, Ivan could come and help him arrange the water bottles on the shelves, because he loved to organize things. And as a reward, he could buy some chocolate cookies, which were his favorite. He said "yes" right away. So that's how it went for a year: Ivan would go to Jose's greengrocer, help him arrange the shelves of water bottles with the labels perfectly lined up on the same side, and he would leave happy with his chocolate cookies.
所以我决定询问侯赛,是否 能让伊万每周四下午两点左右 来这里帮他整理货架上面的矿泉水瓶 因为他很喜欢整理东西。 作为回报,他会买一些巧克力曲奇, 这也是他最喜欢的东西。 侯赛当时就答应了。 所以,在这之后的一年当中 伊万就会去侯赛的小店, 帮他整理货架上的水瓶 所有的标签都完美朝向同一侧, 然后他就会很高兴的 带着他的巧克力曲奇离开。
Jose is not an expert in autism. There is no need to be an expert nor do anything heroic to include someone. We just need to be there --
侯赛并不是自闭症方面的专家。 他也不需要是专家, 做这样的事情也不需要 人们的任何英勇献身。 我们需要做的仅仅是在那儿。
(Applause)
(掌声)
(Applause ends)
Really, no heroic deed -- we simply need to be close. And if we are afraid of something or we don't understand something, we need to ask.
真的,这不是什么英勇的行为, 我们需要的只是靠近一点。 当我们害怕一件事物, 或是不了解一件事物的时候, 我们需要的是大胆提问。
Let's be curious but never indifferent. Let's have the courage to look each other in the eye, because by looking, we can open a whole world to someone else.
让我们变得好奇, 而不是冷漠。 让我们鼓起勇气看向彼此的眼睛, 因为只有当我们看了, 我们才能打开他们的完整世界。
(Applause)
(掌声)
(Cheers)
(欢呼)