Lucas Camilo

Some of you have heard about Lucas’s famous video writing/making/performing debut – here it is! The rapidly-going-viral “What To Do and What Not To Do.

We are so proud of Lucas and Mira for creating these videos (with support from the speech and occupational therapy team at school.) This past week Lucas and Mira presented this to their classmates, and then led their friends in role plays to practice the friendship/communication skills. Mira’s mom and I were in the back of the classroom watching so proudly. After watching the videos, their classmates came up and – with all the earnestness, nervousness and goofiness of seven and eight year-olds – they reenacted the scenes. It was fantastic.

And honestly, it was so incredibly exciting for me to see his school therapy team so beautifully and creatively broadening the understanding of “speech therapy” to include coaching for all of Lucas’s friends. He can work and work and work at communication – and he does try hard – but as long as his friends and peers don’t get support in learning how to communicate with Lucas, he’s going to be left frustrated. Burke and I have been sure that the broadening of the “therapy” to include typical peers would be beneficial to everyone, but we weren’t sure exactly how it would look. So it meant a lot to us to see Mira (with the support of her parents) enthusiastically dive into the project. She and Lucas both looked so proud at the front of their classroom when they presented.

And, if you didn’t see it the first time, watch the videos again to see how happy Lucas is. His nurse had been telling me about how much Lucas enjoyed acting. If you can’t see it in his face, watch his hands — they do an almost involuntary flapping that happens when he’s really, really happy.