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"Look at me!"

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That expression turned me[br]into a sight catcher.

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I am Ivan's mother, he is 15.

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Ivan has autism, he doesn't speak,

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and communicates through an iPad

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where his whole universe of words[br]exists in images.

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He was diagnosed [br]when he was two and a half --

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even today I remember that day painfully.

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My husband and I felt really lost,

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we didn't know where to start.

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There was no Internet,

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you couldn't google information,

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so those first steps

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were out of intuition.

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Ivan would not maintain eye contact,

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he had lost the words he said,

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would not respond to his name,

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or to anything we would ask him,

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as if words were noise.

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The only way I could know

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what was going on, what he felt,

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was looking him in the eye.

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But that bridge was broken.

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How could I teach him what life was like?

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When I did things he liked,[br]he would look at me;

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and we were together.

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So I devoted to follow[br]him in those things,

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in order to have more and more [br]gazing moments.

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We would spend hours playing tag

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with her older sister, Alexia,

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and when saying: "I'll catch you!"

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he would look around for us,

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and, at that moment,[br]I could feel he was alive.

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We also hold a record of hours [br]in the pool.

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Ivan was always strongly[br]passionate for water.

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I remember when he was two and a half

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a rainy day of winter,

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I was taking him to a covered pool

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because we went there even in rainy days.

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We were on the highway,

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and I took the wrong exit.

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He burst into tears,[br]inconsolably, non stop,

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until I went back to track

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and only then did he calm down.

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How was it possible that being[br]a two and a half years old

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and without responding to his name,

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yet in the midst of a storm and mist,[br]where I couldn't see anything,

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he could be capable[br]of perfectly recognizing the path?

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That is when I realized that Ivan[br]had an exceptional visual memory

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and that this would be my entry door;

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so I started taking[br]pictures of everything.

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And teach him what life was like,

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showing it picture by picture.

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Even now it still is

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the way Ivan communicates[br]what he wants, what he needs,

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and also what he feels.

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But it was not the gaze of Ivan alone.

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There was also the gaze of everyone else.

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How to make people see[br]not only his autism,

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but him,

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and everything he can give?

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With all he can do?

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Along with what he likes and doesn't like,

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like any of us?

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But for that I also had to give of myself.

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I had to dare to let him go,

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and I was struggling.

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Ivan was 11 years old,

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and would go to treatment[br]in a neighborhood near home.

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One afternoon,[br]while I was waiting for him,

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I went into a greengrocer

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the typical one with a bit of everything,

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and while doing the shopping,

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I started talking to Jose, the owner.

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I told him that Ivan had autism,

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and I wanted him to learn[br]to go around by himself,

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without anyone holding his hand.

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So I decided to ask him

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if Thursdays around 2 pm,

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Ivan could come and help him arrange [br]the water bottles of the shelves

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because he loved to organize

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and in return, he could[br]buy chocolate cookies,

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his favorite ones.

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He accepted right away.

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So, for a year

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Ivan would go to Jose's greengrocer,

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helped him arrange[br]the bottles on the shelves,

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with the labels perfectly[br]aligned to the same side

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and he would get his chocolate cookies.

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Jose is not an expert in autism.

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There is no need to be an expert,

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nor doing anything heroic[br]to include someone.

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We just have to be there --

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(Applause)

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That's it, no heroic deed --

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We simply have to be close.

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And if we are afraid of something

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or we don't understand, let's ask;

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let's be curious,

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but never indifferent.

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Let's dare to look each other in the eye

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because through our gaze,

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we can open a whole world to someone else.

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(Applause)

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(Cheers)

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(Applause)

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Thank you so much, thank you!

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(Applause)