It's a beautiful Saturday morning in New Yorbany. The sun was out, children were playing together, and birds were chirping wonderfully. The day was so peaceful. Plus, today Babbs is going back to speech therapy with her mommy and daddy. She was so excited to see her favorite speech therapist, Dr. Lisabelle.
Babbs' Mommy slowly opened the door and walked into her bedroom. Her daughter is still asleep. Mommy comes in and kindly tells Babbs to get up for speech therapy. "Babbs sweetie, it's time to get up." The child turns away while she keeps resting, Mommy sighs in light distress. Suddenly, mommy starts to tickle Babbs and she begins to laugh so hard.
Her Mom lifts Babbs up and finally dresses her up to get ready for the day.
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Daddy is in the kitchen making some toast, pancakes, bacon, and sausages on the stove and toaster for breakfast. He places full separate plates of food with some jars of butter, cherry jam, as well as a bottle of maple syrup on the dining table.
Daddy gets his triangle meal bell and rod to call his wife and daughter for breakfast. DING DING DING. "Girls, breakfast is ready! Come and eat it up!" Babbs and Mommy hear the bell, then walk to the kitchen to eat some food.
As the family has their breakfast, Babbs thinks about seeing Dr. Lisabelle at speech therapy at the Disability Support Program, which is a place that Babbs has been going to since she was three years old.
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After finishing breakfast, Babbs and her parents are now ready to go to speech therapy. The three get in the family car, they put on their seat belts so they can be safe. They also close the car doors, as daddy starts driving to the Disability Support Program with his wife and daughter.
As the family drives to the program, they are caught in bits of traffic on the city road for a couple of minutes. Daddy is trying to be patient, but then he honks the car horn to get the other cars to move over through this crazy traffic jam.
Thankfully, Daddy, Mommy, and Babbs were able to get past traffic and they finally made it to the Disability Support Program on time.
Babbs and her parents find their seats in the reception room, Daddy goes to the front desk to ask the receptionist for a form to fill in for his daughter. They give it to him, and Daddy returns to his seat next to Mommy and Babbs. As Daddy begins to fill out the form, Babbs sees a baby throwing a temper tantrum because this is her first day at the program, and she doesn't want to be there.
"Babbs!" said Babbs, as she got the baby's attention. Babbs makes funny faces for the baby, and the baby giggles happily. The baby's parents see this, and they start to laugh happily as well. Her mother walked towards Babbs and her family. "Excuse me?" asked the baby's mom. "Yes?" said Mommy.
"I just want to thank your daughter for making our baby laugh. You see, this is her first day in the Disability Support Program and she was throwing a tantrum on our way here." Explained the baby's mom.
"You're welcome, and I'm sorry to hear that," said Mommy. "When Babbs was three, she also threw a tantrum coming here as well. But Babbs truly has grown into a strong and pure little girl. Right, sweetie?" asked Mommy.
Babbs nodded with a smiling grin, agreeing with her Mommy completely. While the two Mommies begin their conversation, Daddy finally finishes filling out the Disability Support form, stands up, goes to the front desk again, and hands the form to the receptionist. "Thank you, sir. We'll give this to Dr. Lisabelle immediately."
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As Babbs and her parents wait for Dr. Lisabelle, Babbs sees a playroom where children play in order to wait for their names to be called by the Doctors or Speech Therapists. Babbs lightly tugs Mommy's long skirt and Daddy's pants for her to go to the playhouse with the children until Dr. Lisabelle calls her.
Her parents notice this, as Babbs points to the playroom. "Babbs!" "What is it, sweetie? Would you like to go to the playroom?" asked Mommy. Babbs kindly nodded, and Mommy smiled. Mommy whispered into Daddy's ear and asked for their daughter to play with the children in the playroom. Daddy says yes. They happily take Babbs to the playroom to spend time with the other kids.
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As Babbs enters the playroom, she sees several children with different kinds of disabilities and disorders. Growing up, the kids in Babbs' preschool and kindergarten would never play with her because she could only say her name when meeting or greeting them. They would completely begin to bully her as a result, making a young Babbs cry all the way home.
Today, Babbs finally has a community where she can call her home. However, there will be kids who Babbs will like, and kids she won't like in the future with or without a disability, or disorder.
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All of a sudden, one of the nurses called for Babbs. "Miss Babbs? Dr. Lisabelle would like to see you." Babbs turns after hearing her name from the nurse. She smiles and stands to run to her parents to go to Dr. Lisabelle's room for the speech therapy session. Daddy picks Babbs up, and they and Mommy walk to the Doctor's office for the speech session.
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Mommy opens the door, and she, Daddy, and Babbs see Dr. Lisabelle on the telephone talking to someone. She is probably talking to either a patient or a family member, but Dr. Lisabelle is about to be done with the conversation. Daddy then clears his throat to get the Doctor's attention. "Ahem… AHEM!!!" The Doctor hears this and tells her patient or family to call them back after Babbs' session. Dr. Lisabelle hangs up and happily swivels the chair to Babbs and her parents.
"Why good morning you two." smiled Dr. Lisabelle. "Hi, Babbs. How are you doing today?" smiled the Doctor again. "Are you ready for your session?" she asked, "Babbs!" nodded Babbs, as she was happily excited for her speech session with Dr. Lisabelle. "At a girl!" said Mommy happily. Daddy places his daughter on the child-size chair for hers and the Doctor's session, and he and Mommy sit on adult-size chairs to watch their daughter expand her speech patterns with the assistance of Dr. Lisabelle.
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The doctor will now begin their session. "Okay Babbs, we're going to play the word-to-sentence game." "Babbs!" said Babbs gleefully. Lisabelle then pulls out a medium-sized box from the right side of her chair. She opens it and inside are three organized sections of flashcards of easy words for Babbs to learn how to speak with.
"Alrighty then, let us start with the first-word card. I will take out a card and place it on the table individually. Then you will say what the word is. Then, I'll put them together with other words and you'll say them as a sentence." "Oh, and if you need help all you have to do is ask me or Mommy and Daddy, okay?" explained Dr. Lisabelle. Babbs kindly nodded, "BABBS!!" she smiled.
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The doctor places the first-word card on the table in front of Babbs. "Okay, what is this word?" kindly asked The doctor, as Babbs began to think for a second at first. Suddenly, Babbs says the first word. "Duck." "Duck, excellent!" Dr. Lisabelle cheerfully clapped. She places a second card on the table for Babbs. "Now what does this card say?" Babbs thinks again and quickly says it.
"Wa…ter." The doctor happily gasped "Good job, Babbs! And good job taking your time saying the word 'Water'." Mommy and Daddy clapped for their daughter so sweetly.
Finally, Dr. Lisabelle pulls out four other words— two 'The's', one 'is', one 'in', and a surprise card so that Babbs can finally place each of the words together to make a sentence. "Alright Babbs, now I'm going to flip the surprise card and you'll say the word that is on it, okie dokie?" "Babbs!!" Babbs nodded, as the Doctor flipped the surprise card in front of Babbs on the table. "Ah, If you need help sounding this word out, you can ask either Mommy, Daddy, or I, okay?" Babbs excitedly nodded with a smile.
Babbs tries to think about saying the surprise word on the surprise card, but she is having a bit of a hard time thinking about it. Dr. Lisabelle saw this, so did Mommy and Daddy. "Babbs sweetie, do you need help?" asked Mommy. Babbs kindly shook her head, knowing she could do it whether she needed help or not.
Babbs continued to think but stopped after she couldn't say the surprise word on her own. "Oh… I think she needs help sounding the word out." cried Daddy. "Babbs, do you need help sounding the surprise word?" asked Daddy kindly. She sheepishly nodded. Babbs looked at Dr. Lisabelle, Mommy, and Daddy to help her out by saying the surprise word. Babbs picks up the card and shows it to the three grown-ups. Mommy, Daddy, and the Doctor looked at each other, smiled and nodded.
"Do you want us to take turns helping you, honey?" said Daddy. "Babbs." nodded Babbs. Daddy smiled, and so did Mommy and Dr. Lisabelle. The three adults happily begin to assist Babbs with the surprise word.
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Mommy goes first. "S…" Babbs begins to sound the first letter. "S…" Daddy is next, "wim…" Babbs sounded the next three letters of the surprise word and then said them together. "W…i…m…, wim." Finally, Dr. Lisabelle says the third syllable of the surprise word. "ming…" Babbs sounds the last four letters, puts them together just like the second syllable.
"M…i…n…g…, ming!" "That was very good, Babbs!" said Dr. Lisabelle proudly. "Now try to put them together. You think you can do that?" asked the Doctor. "Babbs!!!" said Babbs as she smiled. "S…wim…ming. Swim… ming." "Swimming!" said Babbs while her face brightened with joy.
Mommy, Daddy, and Dr. Lisabelle became dumbfounded. Daddy excitedly picks and lifts up his daughter and hugs her with tears of joy. Mommy joined in too, and kissed Babbs on her left cheek. Daddy kissed Babbs on her right cheek. Daddy gently put Babbs down, so that she can place the word cards and the surprise card together to make a sentence.
She puts big cards and small cards to create one sentence. "Good job Babbs!!" smiled Dr. Lisabelle. "Are you ready to read the sentence?" the Doctor asked. Babbs gratefully nodded! "The… duck… is… swimming… in the… water." "The duck is swimming in the water!!"
The three grown-ups smiled so excitedly, Babbs also smiled as well. This is an amazing accomplishment for Babbs and her family.
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Over the next few Saturdays, Mommy and Daddy would take their daughter to speech therapy at the Disability Support Program learning how to speak more. Babbs was also taught to say words that are appropriate, and NOT say words that are inappropriate by her parents, Dr. Lisabelle, and the faculty of her new school. Speaking really helps Babbs communicate very well.
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As her speech successfully improved, she was able to talk to everyone, especially Mommy, Daddy, and her friend Jackson. In fact, he invited her to come to his house for a playdate. Babbs thought about it and said yes, which made Jackson very happy. Similar to Babbs, Jackson was also bullied by his classmates from preschool to kindergarten because of his disability which made him cry a lot more than Babbs growing up.
Jackson was also diagnosed with autism when he was two and developed ADHD when he was three. A lot of children would trip his feet to the floor, spit on him, put sand in his pants, or drop a worm in his hair.
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After school, Babbs went straight home to ask Mommy and Daddy and take her to Jackson's house for their first play date. Her parents were very happy that their little girl had made a friend. The two started to think for a minute and allowed her to go to Jackson's house for the playdate. Babbs smiled and jumped for glee because she is so excited to go to a friend's house for the first time. Mommy and Daddy are excited for her too.
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On Sunday, October 3, 1999, Babbs and her family headed to the car and drove to the Perez Residence in uptown New Yorbany. It was smooth driving for Babbs and her family, which is a good thing for them. When they finally reached Jackson's house, Babbs was absolutely happy to play with her friend. Babbs held her Mommy and Daddy's hands as they walked to the front door. Daddy pressed the doorbell, and then heard a man's voice.
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"Who is it?" asked the man. "It's Babbs and her Mommy and Daddy. May we come in, please?" said Daddy. "Sure! Come on in!" The man opened the door from the inside of his house and happily greeted the family. "Hello, you three. Oh, is this your daughter Babbs? She's so adorable!" "Thank you, sir," said Mommy. Daddy smiled at Mommy sweetly. "Is Jackson home?" asked Daddy. "Yes, he is. He's upstairs playing with his Legos. Don't worry, I'll call him." "Jackson, sweetie, your friend Babbs' here!" kindly shouted the man. "Okay, Daddy. I'll be right down!" Jackson kindly shouted back.
Jackson swiftly walked down the staircase, then stopped in the middle and saw Babbs. He squealed, "Babbs!!" Babbs sees Jackson, and says: "Good Morning Jackson!"