Philip has always loved music. In fact I think his first real words were to
music. I would sing him, “Twinkle,
twinkle, little ___” Philip would fill
in “stah.” Throughout the years, even if
we did not have conversation, we would enjoy this tag-team singing together,
always filling in where the other left off, but not singing
simultaneously. Eventually Philip could
sing the whole song by himself. Philip’s
helpers at church tell me often that he sings praise and worship songs very
well. Once, a teacher at school asked if
we listened to Kiss 98.5 in the car, which we often do. Apparently Philip was singing some of those
songs at school.
When we saw Soma last October, Philip answered his first
open ended questions. Really, it was the
first time we ever knew what his desires were aside from what he wanted to eat
or drink for a snack on a daily basis. It
was during our very last session of our 4 day stay in Austin. I remember Soma leading the path of communication
from something we could all answer to more and more only what Philip could
answer. She began, “What color is your
shirt?” At that time Philip was using
three stencil boards which limited the number of letters that could be
picked. Soma even made him pick which stencil
to use. She ripped three pieces of paper
onto which were written, “A-I,” “J-R,” and “S-Z.” Slowly the process began with Philip picking
the paper of the stencil he needed and then pointing to the letter, then
repeating the process for each letter one by one. “GREEN,” he finally spelled. Then Soma said, “I am thinking about
Christmas. What color would you like to
wear for Christmas?” Again, Philip went
through the process and spelled, “RED.”
Finally Soma asked, “Now I am thinking about a Christmas present. What present do you want for Christmas?” As Philip chose his stencil and picked his
letter, we all sat at the edge of our seats.
I never knew what to get Philip for presents for any occasion. Usually it was a toy that never got played
with. Another year it was a pack of
straws that Philip loved to use to stim.
Now he slowly spelled, “R-A-D-I-O.”
It made complete sense! I have
always known Philip loved music. Tears
were streaming down my face. I knew he
was going to get lots of radios for Christmas.
He did- 2 from each set of grandparents and 2 from us!
Recently, Philip has been into the Beatles. When we are in the car, he always asks for “music”
and will say it out loud over and over if there is no music turned on. A couple of times Philip has had the
opportunity to put a CD in and has picked the Beatles CD over and over again. Today Sam and I did a Beatles lesson for
Philip. They actually had a short movie
on them on Brain Pop. Philip was able to
answer the names of some songs. He
spelled out “HEY JUDE, PAPERBACK WRITER, LET IT BE.” When asked which one was his favorite,
Philip, always being the diplomatic one, spelled, “ANY.” We asked Philip where the Beatles were
from. Expecting England to be the
answer, Philip went even further and spelled “LIVERPOOL ENGLAND.”
He knew they were a band in the 1960s.
He was able to name “JOHN LENNON” and “PAUL MCCARTNEY”, but needed help
figuring out the other two. I gave him
clues by showing my ring and saying the last name is something out in space. “RINGO STAR,” he produced. Then a king’s name who was the son of Harry
was figured to be “GEORGE HARRISON.” At
the end of the night, Philip chose “Strawberry Fields Forever” on Sam’s iPhone
and we danced.
Philip wears red and gets one of his radios for Christmas in Albuquerque 2012
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