In recent blogs I have shared amazing stories about telepathy and the power of mind; using intuitive intelligence which is knowledge reliant on the intuitive senses.
I've also written about animal intelligence, and the nonverbal communication that occurs between humans and animals.
What about communicating with non verbal children and adults; people who have special needs? What about communication with the mentally retarded? How much is a person with diminutive intellectual intelligence capable of understanding? Is it possible we just don't know all the answers because there isn't a way to measure intuitive intelligence? Researchers have shown that animals understand far more than we ever imagined.
And we continue learning about non verbal communication studying children who have autistic spectrum disorders, and researching people with savant syndrome.
Before I became a therapist I was a Special Education teacher.
This is the first of a few blogs in which I will share some incredible interactions I had as an educator, including some personal revelations and a remarkable break through with a non verbal, non responsive child.
But the most poignant experience was my own reunion with Lois my sister, who is severely retarded.
We were separated for many years.
I was three and she was four, when my parents placed her outside of our home.
Neither of my parents had the emotional capacity to raise Lois on their own.
And institutionalizing the mentally impaired was typical of the times; some fifty plus years ago.
My parents also wanted me to grow up unencumbered by Lois's handicap.
My father told me I couldn't see Lois until I was eighteen, because people at my sister's school were more susceptible to germs and children are often infectious.
This information never sat well inside me; it sounded and felt wrong, and when I left home to enter my Bachelor's program in Special Education my doubts about his lack of truthfulness were affirmed.
In my first year of college I went to see my sister.
I spoke with her doctors and social workers beforehand.
They were polite, clinical, in telling me how she functioned developmentally like a child between a year and a half and two years.
And they forewarned me that she probably wouldn't recognize me given her limited intelligence.
They wheeled Lois to the visiting area.
She sat hunched, rocking back and forth, making moaning sounds.
She had a rattle in one hand and a towel she chewed on in the other.
My aunt and a friend from college came to support me.
I had a lot of guilt about abandoning Lois, even though this was something I had no control over.
They greeted her first.
Lois briefly stopped what she was doing to glance at each one of them and quickly slipped back into her own self contained and contented world.
I walked over and bent down.
My stomach was knotted.
I leaned over to hug her.
"Hi, Lo Lo, it's Steffie, I said.
"I've missed you".
Where did that nickname come from? Did I call her Lo Lo when I was little? She stopped rocking, cocked her head to get a better look.
Did she recognize me, or the sound of my voice? Was there an invisible spark igniting and rekindling the flame between us? Suddenly she reached out, grabbed, and pulled me close.
Lois hugged me so tightly I could barely breathe.
And all the while she patted me on my back.
I started crying.
I was three again.
Lois stared into my eyes and started giggling...
Sometimes our eyes probe.
Sometimes they stare vacantly.
And sometimes they say "I remember".
There is no doubt that Lois knows me in spite of what the doctor's said.