1 00:00:01,278 --> 00:00:02,657 "Look at me!" 2 00:00:04,676 --> 00:00:09,301 That phrase turned me into an eye-contact coach. 3 00:00:10,795 --> 00:00:13,739 I'm the mother of Iván; he's 15 years old. 4 00:00:14,519 --> 00:00:16,463 Iván has autism, 5 00:00:16,487 --> 00:00:18,032 he doesn't speak, 6 00:00:18,056 --> 00:00:20,046 and he communicates through an iPad, 7 00:00:20,070 --> 00:00:23,942 where his whole universe of words exists in images. 8 00:00:25,947 --> 00:00:30,489 He was diagnosed when he was two and a half. 9 00:00:31,707 --> 00:00:35,720 I still remember that day painfully. 10 00:00:37,479 --> 00:00:40,212 My husband and I felt really lost; 11 00:00:41,489 --> 00:00:43,667 we didn't know where to begin. 12 00:00:44,940 --> 00:00:47,365 There was no Internet, 13 00:00:47,389 --> 00:00:49,819 you couldn't Google information, 14 00:00:50,705 --> 00:00:52,682 so we made those first steps 15 00:00:53,619 --> 00:00:55,745 out of sheer intuition. 16 00:00:57,849 --> 00:00:59,939 Iván would not maintain eye contact, 17 00:01:01,011 --> 00:01:03,260 he had lost the words that he did know, 18 00:01:04,284 --> 00:01:08,261 and he didn't respond to his name or to anything we asked him, 19 00:01:09,069 --> 00:01:11,356 as if words were noise. 20 00:01:13,467 --> 00:01:17,375 The only way I could know 21 00:01:18,017 --> 00:01:19,635 what was going on with him, 22 00:01:20,303 --> 00:01:21,802 what he felt, 23 00:01:22,337 --> 00:01:24,196 was looking him in the eye. 24 00:01:25,809 --> 00:01:27,962 But that bridge was broken. 25 00:01:30,621 --> 00:01:33,052 How could I teach him about life? 26 00:01:35,519 --> 00:01:39,427 When I did things he liked, he would look at me, 27 00:01:39,451 --> 00:01:40,985 and we were connected. 28 00:01:41,885 --> 00:01:45,453 So I dedicated myself to working with him on those things, 29 00:01:45,477 --> 00:01:49,806 so we would have more and more eye-contact moments. 30 00:01:51,290 --> 00:01:57,811 We would spend hours and hours playing tag with his older sister, Alexia, 31 00:01:58,502 --> 00:02:01,119 and when we said: "I caught you!" 32 00:02:02,186 --> 00:02:03,880 he would look around for us, 33 00:02:04,970 --> 00:02:09,709 and at that moment, I could feel he was alive. 34 00:02:13,088 --> 00:02:18,015 We also hold a record for hours spent in a swimming pool. 35 00:02:19,182 --> 00:02:22,538 Iván always had a passion for water. 36 00:02:23,834 --> 00:02:26,691 I remember when he was two and a half, 37 00:02:27,761 --> 00:02:31,061 on a rainy winter day, 38 00:02:31,085 --> 00:02:33,561 I was taking him to a covered pool, 39 00:02:33,585 --> 00:02:36,235 because even on rainy days we'd go to the pool. 40 00:02:37,823 --> 00:02:41,511 We were on the highway, and I took the wrong exit. 41 00:02:42,295 --> 00:02:46,237 He burst into tears and cried inconsolably, nonstop, 42 00:02:46,261 --> 00:02:47,781 until I turned back. 43 00:02:48,536 --> 00:02:50,158 Only then did he calm down. 44 00:02:51,528 --> 00:02:55,224 How was it possible that a two and a half year old 45 00:02:55,248 --> 00:02:57,055 didn't respond to his own name, 46 00:02:57,851 --> 00:03:01,975 yet in the middle of the rain and fog, where I couldn't see anything, 47 00:03:01,999 --> 00:03:06,305 he knew the exact route? 48 00:03:09,066 --> 00:03:12,506 That's when I realized that Iván had an exceptional visual memory, 49 00:03:13,542 --> 00:03:16,942 and that that would be my way in. 50 00:03:17,827 --> 00:03:20,197 So I started taking pictures of everything, 51 00:03:20,868 --> 00:03:23,014 and teaching him what life was like, 52 00:03:23,038 --> 00:03:26,628 showing it to him, picture by picture. 53 00:03:27,758 --> 00:03:32,456 Even now, it's the way Iván communicates 54 00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:33,842 what he wants, 55 00:03:34,311 --> 00:03:35,590 what he needs, 56 00:03:36,392 --> 00:03:38,782 and also what he feels. 57 00:03:42,023 --> 00:03:45,222 But it wasn't just Iván's look that mattered. 58 00:03:46,932 --> 00:03:48,896 Everyone else's did, too. 59 00:03:50,735 --> 00:03:54,725 How could I make people see not only his autism, 60 00:03:54,749 --> 00:03:56,145 but see him the person, 61 00:03:57,312 --> 00:03:58,981 and everything he can give; 62 00:04:00,316 --> 00:04:02,062 everything he can do; 63 00:04:03,387 --> 00:04:06,025 the things he likes and doesn't like, 64 00:04:06,049 --> 00:04:07,889 just like any one of us? 65 00:04:09,311 --> 00:04:12,381 But for that, I also had to give of myself. 66 00:04:13,794 --> 00:04:15,841 I had to have the strength to let him go, 67 00:04:16,896 --> 00:04:18,955 which was extremely difficult. 68 00:04:21,297 --> 00:04:22,767 Iván was 11 years old, 69 00:04:23,755 --> 00:04:27,445 and he went for treatment in a neighborhood near our house. 70 00:04:28,793 --> 00:04:32,224 One afternoon, while I was waiting for him, 71 00:04:32,863 --> 00:04:34,199 I went into a greengrocer, 72 00:04:34,223 --> 00:04:37,492 a typical neighborhood store with a little bit of everything. 73 00:04:38,428 --> 00:04:39,980 While doing the shopping, 74 00:04:40,004 --> 00:04:43,214 I started talking to José, the owner. 75 00:04:44,942 --> 00:04:46,325 I told him about Iván, 76 00:04:47,057 --> 00:04:48,413 that he had autism, 77 00:04:49,437 --> 00:04:53,705 and that I wanted him to learn to walk down the street by himself, 78 00:04:53,729 --> 00:04:55,829 without anyone holding his hand. 79 00:04:56,875 --> 00:05:00,541 So I decided to ask José if Thursdays around 2pm, 80 00:05:01,509 --> 00:05:05,258 Iván could come and help him arrange the water bottles on the shelves, 81 00:05:05,282 --> 00:05:07,597 because he loved to organize things. 82 00:05:07,621 --> 00:05:11,387 And as a reward, he could buy some chocolate cookies, 83 00:05:11,411 --> 00:05:13,157 which were his favorite. 84 00:05:15,843 --> 00:05:17,343 He said "yes" right away. 85 00:05:18,815 --> 00:05:22,057 So that's how it went for a year: 86 00:05:22,081 --> 00:05:24,371 Iván would go to José's greengrocer, 87 00:05:25,312 --> 00:05:28,756 help him arrange the shelves of water bottles 88 00:05:28,780 --> 00:05:34,043 with the labels perfectly lined up on the same side, 89 00:05:34,067 --> 00:05:37,674 and he would leave happy with his chocolate cookies. 90 00:05:44,054 --> 00:05:46,474 José is not an expert in autism. 91 00:05:49,291 --> 00:05:52,102 There is no need to be an expert, 92 00:05:53,212 --> 00:05:57,000 nor do anything heroic to include someone. 93 00:06:00,084 --> 00:06:02,080 We just need to be there -- 94 00:06:02,515 --> 00:06:04,087 (Applause) 95 00:06:10,012 --> 00:06:11,584 (Applause ends) 96 00:06:13,737 --> 00:06:15,254 Really, no heroic deed -- 97 00:06:16,977 --> 00:06:19,269 we simply need to be close. 98 00:06:21,948 --> 00:06:23,624 And if we are afraid of something 99 00:06:24,511 --> 00:06:26,695 or we don't understand something, 100 00:06:26,719 --> 00:06:27,968 we need to ask. 101 00:06:29,182 --> 00:06:30,862 Let's be curious, 102 00:06:32,362 --> 00:06:35,522 but never indifferent. 103 00:06:38,217 --> 00:06:41,767 Let's have the courage to look each other in the eye, 104 00:06:44,386 --> 00:06:46,488 because by looking, 105 00:06:46,512 --> 00:06:49,585 we can open a whole world to someone else. 106 00:06:51,142 --> 00:06:53,540 (Applause) 107 00:06:53,564 --> 00:06:55,888 (Cheers)