WEBVTT 00:00:01.278 --> 00:00:02.657 "Look at me!" 00:00:04.676 --> 00:00:09.301 That phrase turned me into an eye-contact coach. 00:00:10.795 --> 00:00:13.739 I'm the mother of Iván; he's 15 years old. 00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:16.463 Iván has autism, 00:00:16.487 --> 00:00:18.032 he doesn't speak, 00:00:18.056 --> 00:00:20.046 and he communicates through an iPad, 00:00:20.070 --> 00:00:23.942 where his whole universe of words exists in images. 00:00:25.947 --> 00:00:30.489 He was diagnosed when he was two and a half. 00:00:31.707 --> 00:00:35.720 I still remember that day painfully. 00:00:37.479 --> 00:00:40.212 My husband and I felt really lost; 00:00:41.489 --> 00:00:43.667 we didn't know where to begin. 00:00:44.940 --> 00:00:47.365 There was no Internet, 00:00:47.389 --> 00:00:49.819 you couldn't Google information, 00:00:50.705 --> 00:00:52.682 so we made those first steps 00:00:53.619 --> 00:00:55.745 out of sheer intuition. 00:00:57.849 --> 00:00:59.939 Iván would not maintain eye contact, 00:01:01.011 --> 00:01:03.260 he had lost the words that he did know, 00:01:04.284 --> 00:01:08.261 and he didn't respond to his name or to anything we asked him, 00:01:09.069 --> 00:01:11.356 as if words were noise. 00:01:13.467 --> 00:01:17.375 The only way I could know 00:01:18.017 --> 00:01:19.635 what was going on with him, 00:01:20.303 --> 00:01:21.802 what he felt, 00:01:22.337 --> 00:01:24.196 was looking him in the eye. 00:01:25.809 --> 00:01:27.962 But that bridge was broken. 00:01:30.621 --> 00:01:33.052 How could I teach him about life? 00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:39.427 When I did things he liked, he would look at me, 00:01:39.451 --> 00:01:40.985 and we were connected. 00:01:41.885 --> 00:01:45.453 So I dedicated myself to working with him on those things, 00:01:45.477 --> 00:01:49.806 so we would have more and more eye-contact moments. 00:01:51.290 --> 00:01:57.811 We would spend hours and hours playing tag with his older sister, Alexia, 00:01:58.502 --> 00:02:01.119 and when we said: "I caught you!" 00:02:02.186 --> 00:02:03.880 he would look around for us, 00:02:04.970 --> 00:02:09.709 and at that moment, I could feel he was alive. 00:02:13.088 --> 00:02:18.015 We also hold a record for hours spent in a swimming pool. 00:02:19.182 --> 00:02:22.538 Iván always had a passion for water. 00:02:23.834 --> 00:02:26.691 I remember when he was two and a half, 00:02:27.761 --> 00:02:31.061 on a rainy winter day, 00:02:31.085 --> 00:02:33.561 I was taking him to a covered pool, 00:02:33.585 --> 00:02:36.235 because even on rainy days we'd go to the pool. 00:02:37.823 --> 00:02:41.511 We were on the highway, and I took the wrong exit. 00:02:42.295 --> 00:02:46.237 He burst into tears and cried inconsolably, nonstop, 00:02:46.261 --> 00:02:47.781 until I turned back. 00:02:48.536 --> 00:02:50.158 Only then did he calm down. 00:02:51.528 --> 00:02:55.224 How was it possible that a two and a half year old 00:02:55.248 --> 00:02:57.055 didn't respond to his own name, 00:02:57.851 --> 00:03:01.975 yet in the middle of the rain and fog, where I couldn't see anything, 00:03:01.999 --> 00:03:06.305 he knew the exact route? 00:03:09.066 --> 00:03:12.506 That's when I realized that Iván had an exceptional visual memory, 00:03:13.542 --> 00:03:16.942 and that that would be my way in. 00:03:17.827 --> 00:03:20.197 So I started taking pictures of everything, 00:03:20.868 --> 00:03:23.014 and teaching him what life was like, 00:03:23.038 --> 00:03:26.628 showing it to him, picture by picture. 00:03:27.758 --> 00:03:32.456 Even now, it's the way Iván communicates 00:03:32.480 --> 00:03:33.842 what he wants, 00:03:34.311 --> 00:03:35.590 what he needs, 00:03:36.392 --> 00:03:38.782 and also what he feels. 00:03:42.023 --> 00:03:45.222 But it wasn't just Iván's look that mattered. 00:03:46.932 --> 00:03:48.896 Everyone else's did, too. 00:03:50.735 --> 00:03:54.725 How could I make people see not only his autism, 00:03:54.749 --> 00:03:56.145 but see him the person, 00:03:57.312 --> 00:03:58.981 and everything he can give; 00:04:00.316 --> 00:04:02.062 everything he can do; 00:04:03.387 --> 00:04:06.025 the things he likes and doesn't like, 00:04:06.049 --> 00:04:07.889 just like any one of us? 00:04:09.311 --> 00:04:12.381 But for that, I also had to give of myself. 00:04:13.794 --> 00:04:15.841 I had to have the strength to let him go, 00:04:16.896 --> 00:04:18.955 which was extremely difficult. 00:04:21.297 --> 00:04:22.767 Iván was 11 years old, 00:04:23.755 --> 00:04:27.445 and he went for treatment in a neighborhood near our house. 00:04:28.793 --> 00:04:32.224 One afternoon, while I was waiting for him, 00:04:32.863 --> 00:04:34.199 I went into a greengrocer, 00:04:34.223 --> 00:04:37.492 a typical neighborhood store with a little bit of everything. 00:04:38.428 --> 00:04:39.980 While doing the shopping, 00:04:40.004 --> 00:04:43.214 I started talking to José, the owner. 00:04:44.942 --> 00:04:46.325 I told him about Iván, 00:04:47.057 --> 00:04:48.413 that he had autism, 00:04:49.437 --> 00:04:53.705 and that I wanted him to learn to walk down the street by himself, 00:04:53.729 --> 00:04:55.829 without anyone holding his hand. 00:04:56.875 --> 00:05:00.541 So I decided to ask José if Thursdays around 2pm, 00:05:01.509 --> 00:05:05.258 Iván could come and help him arrange the water bottles on the shelves, 00:05:05.282 --> 00:05:07.597 because he loved to organize things. 00:05:07.621 --> 00:05:11.387 And as a reward, he could buy some chocolate cookies, 00:05:11.411 --> 00:05:13.157 which were his favorite. 00:05:15.843 --> 00:05:17.343 He said "yes" right away. 00:05:18.815 --> 00:05:22.057 So that's how it went for a year: 00:05:22.081 --> 00:05:24.371 Iván would go to José's greengrocer, 00:05:25.312 --> 00:05:28.756 help him arrange the shelves of water bottles 00:05:28.780 --> 00:05:34.043 with the labels perfectly lined up on the same side, 00:05:34.067 --> 00:05:37.674 and he would leave happy with his chocolate cookies. 00:05:44.054 --> 00:05:46.474 José is not an expert in autism. 00:05:49.291 --> 00:05:52.102 There is no need to be an expert, 00:05:53.212 --> 00:05:57.000 nor do anything heroic to include someone. 00:06:00.084 --> 00:06:02.080 We just need to be there -- 00:06:02.515 --> 00:06:04.087 (Applause) 00:06:10.012 --> 00:06:11.584 (Applause ends) 00:06:13.737 --> 00:06:15.254 Really, no heroic deed -- 00:06:16.977 --> 00:06:19.269 we simply need to be close. 00:06:21.948 --> 00:06:23.624 And if we are afraid of something 00:06:24.511 --> 00:06:26.695 or we don't understand something, 00:06:26.719 --> 00:06:27.968 we need to ask. 00:06:29.182 --> 00:06:30.862 Let's be curious, 00:06:32.362 --> 00:06:35.522 but never indifferent. 00:06:38.217 --> 00:06:41.767 Let's have the courage to look each other in the eye, 00:06:44.386 --> 00:06:46.488 because by looking, 00:06:46.512 --> 00:06:49.585 we can open a whole world to someone else. 00:06:51.142 --> 00:06:53.540 (Applause) 00:06:53.564 --> 00:06:55.888 (Cheers)