Yes! What a gift! Those children are so Blessed to have you! Bravo and well done!
Years ago, I was working with a class of 4th graders in a foreign country. It was “art time” and the kids were drawing pictures with crayons. There was a completely nonverbal autistic girl in the class (occasionally, she would mouth a little gibberish, never anything that anyone could make out as meaningful or related to anything going on).
As I walked around the classroom talking with the kids about their pictures, I told the little girl what a pretty picture, and asked what color she was using. She was using a pink crayon and to my everlasting surprise, answered “pinkie pink”. In English! Not her first language! And it was objectively meaningful! It never happened again, but for the rest of that day I was on cloud 9!
I could not believe it. Her mother was a third grade teacher at the school and her regular teacher and school principle were good friends of mine. They were amazed as well. We hoped she was having some sort of “ breakthrough”, but as far as I know it was a one-time thing.
She was a sweet little thing, and I still think of her from time to time, wonder about her.
Oops! Sorry for double post!