Swish, swish, swish. Can you do it?
I'm Diana and I'm Christian's mum, and I'm Jade and I'm his older sister. Christian is four years old and he has a brain injury which has caused cerebral palsy and visual impairments.
Superstar!Superstar!
In the early stages it was thought that he'd have quite a poor quality of life and maybe struggle to communicate and struggle to move.
I decided to try a type of sign called Makaton with him after watching Mr. Tumble on TV.I just kept on trying, every single day, and eventually he did it back and that was the start.
Aw鈥 Thank you. Thank you.
Christian absolutely loves music, so we kind of paired signing to music. So we sign to some of his songs and that helps him to learn signs, because he can link it to the song, because he's just to mesmerised by music, isn't he?
[Singing] And if you see a crocodile, don't forget to scream![Screams]
It really seems to ease his frustrations, if he's ever feeling a bit sad, we'll say "shall we put some music on?" It instantly cheers him up.
Yay! You like it? Yeah!
Jade's input with Christian has just been crucial to his speech and language development. She's just always got quality time to spend with him. She perseveres when other people would have probably given up.
Are you being cheeky? No鈥w鈥 Christian. Thank you.
Christian's got the best personality. He's full of joy. He's one of those children鈥e finds joy in every little thing, which makes me stop and appreciate life. He just never seems to give up. There's so many milestones that we thought would be unreachable for him, and he works and works, and through his therapies, he really has hit things that we never thought possible. We always say he is a miracle isn't he? Yeah. He's definitely a miracle.
Go! Wow鈥
I'd recommend to other families who've got kids with special needs to just never give up. Just don't put limitations on your children, because you never know.
High five! Yay!