Moira

There are many ways to describe five-year-old Moira: curious, active and cheerful. But above all, according to her parents, Erica and Troy, she’s simply “full of sunshine”. She also happens to have autism.

It wasn’t until Moira was almost three years old that Erica really began to worry about her development. “It was one of those, ‘is that a major difference or just a minor difference?’” she said. “I started thinking that she should have more language by now.” As a first-time mother who had little contact with other children, Erica wasn’t sure what to expect. “I started noticing what I thought was a lack of interaction and eye contact when she was an infant. Every baby is different, so I didn’t think much of it,” she said.
When Moira turned three, her family moved back to Wichita from Michigan. At that time Moira was still not conveying her wants and needs verbally. After interacting with some of their friends’ children, one of whom was recently diagnosed with autism, Erica and Troy realized there could be a more serious reason for Moira’s delays.

After meeting with their pediatrician, Moira received hearing and speech evaluations from Heartspring Pediatric Services in February 2009. One month later, Moira was diagnosed with autism. Erica’s reaction to the diagnosis was relief. “It was a confirmation to something we had suspected,” she said. “I looked at it practically. ‘Ok, we know for certain. We just proceed from here.’”
In May 2009, Moira began occupational therapy with Mimi French. According to Mimi, Moira has one engine speed and it is high. “She moves quickly, writes quickly and puts puzzles together quickly,” she said. The speed in which she performs tasks often results in poor quality. Mimi is working with Moira to slow down and calmly complete projects in therapy. As a perfectionist, Moira often gets frustrated and shuts down if her work is not up to her standards. Mimi is helping Moira to focus on her work for longer periods of time, engaging in non-preferred activities followed by an activity she enjoys, such as swinging or playing with playdough. This will help her learn more easily and prepare her to be successful in school. During her weekly occupational therapy sessions, Mimi concentrates on Moira’s fine motor skills, pre-writing skills, play skills and self-help skills.

Diane Gough, speech-language pathologist at Heartspring, began seeing Moira in June 2009. At that time, Moira knew hundreds of words in sign language (thanks to Erica and Troy), but she didn’t always use them. Instead, she would go get whatever she wanted without having to ask an adult for help. She would also recite phrases she memorized from movies and commercials. Diane said if Moira wanted an item badly enough, she could usually come up with a line from a movie that indicated what she wanted.

By working with Diane Moira has learned that using language can help her get the things that she wants. As a visual learner, Moira is using a picture system and signs that help encourage verbal interactions. “She is now beginning to comment on her environment,” said Diane. One of the tools Diane has given Erica and Troy is a sentence strip that Moira can use to place pictures of items she wants or sees. “When she starts reaching across the table for something, we redirect her to her sentence strip on the refrigerator and ask, ‘What do you want?’ That really helped to reinforce, ‘I want more milk or I want more corn,’” said Erica.

Attending a structured pre-kindergarten program has also made a big impact on Moira. She has an individualized education plan (IEP) and works with a paraeducator. Moira is a bright little girl; she knows her letters and numbers, even if she cannot write them yet.

To Erica, the thought of not having a resource like Heartspring available for Moira is scary. “Knowing that it is a world-class facility with amazing therapists... If we have to move from here I think, ‘Oh my gosh, what are we going to do?’”
Like most parents, Erica is comforted knowing that Moira is in good hands with Mimi and Diane. “I definitely get the feeling that Diane and Mimi just adore her,” she said. “They mean a lot more than I can say. The fact is that they are not only concerned about Moira, but they’re concerned about our family as a whole. That’s very important because autism doesn’t just affect the child, it affects the whole family.”

Mimi is quick to commend Erica and Troy as well. “Moira has been exposed to so many awesome developmental activities in her life,” said Mimi. “Her parents like to play outside with the kids with water, sand and playdough. They often go to the zoo and the park. These experiences have helped Moira to develop strong foundation skills. It is very rewarding to work with a child who has good foundation skills thanks to parents like Erica and Troy who follow through on activities suggested in therapy.”

This year, Moira’s family participated in the third annual Autism CARE Walk at Heartspring. “As soon as I saw the poster for the walk I immediately got signed up and had a great outpouring of support from friends,” said Erica. “It was great to see 1,000 people here with matching t-shirts. It was also nice to know that being in a crowd of people with my daughter running back and forth and over here and over there…to not have people think ‘what’s wrong with that kid?’ That’s nice.”

Life with Moira is fun and challenging. She’s just like many children, always trying to push the envelope to see what she can get away with. To Erica and Troy, she’s just Moira – cheerful, happy and full of sunshine.