Help Amelia find her voice

This is about my girl, Amelia Jane. Amelia was diagnosed with Autism at 2 years old. It has been a HUGE journey over the last 4 years of discovery, hope and challenges. Amelia is 3rd in a family of 4 amazing kids, 2 boys, George and Noah and youngest sister Poppy.

The main purpose of this blog is to share her story, promote awareness and to raise funds to get her and myself over to Austin, Texas where she can further her amazing development. We have discovered an incredible program that works for her! The program is called RPM (Rapid Prompting Method). This was created by Soma - herself a mother of an Autistic boy. Here is a link to their page. http://www.halo-soma.org/main


This is a communication and education method. Amelia worked with Soma in Sydney just last month and what we discovered just amazed and encouraged us. She was spelling words by pointing to and choosing letters. She showed an ability to grasp counting and concepts really quickly! We had always believed in our daughters intellect and seeing her communicate just how much she knew was awesome. Amelia is predominantly non-verbal and considered 'low-functioning' (but I wont even get into that label issue right now! :) )  We (Me and husband Con) see so much potential for our daughter to learn to communicate by spelling out words and pointing to letters on a letter-board and eventually writing or typing.

I have so many things to say about this, but if I got started I wouldn't know when to stop! I will just say for now, the very first sentence Amelia spelt to me, by pointing to letter on the letter board or choosing her letters was I WILL MATTER. It was such an amazing moment. She already matters to us, but I feel this was her way of showing me, she wants more from life. More ways to talk, to communicate, and most of all to show us who she is.

I am going to attach some clips of Amelia working with Soma to this site as soon as I can work out how to shorten the 25 minute videos.

We have 3 main plans to get some fundraising done.

The first being through go-fundme. This is a fantastic and easy way for people to be able to help my little girl.

Another way is to donate and participate in a Marathon (full, half, 10km, 5km of 2km walk) in Wangaratta in February. Fundraising packs will be supplied! Please contact me if you wish you join in the marathon, or would like a fundraising pack. My husband, Con will be running the full marathon. I will be running the 10km with my 8 and 10 year old nieces.


The third source of fundraising we are working towards, will be to create and sell some cards, using my own photography. :) I will post these as soon as they are ready!


100% of every dollar raised will go directly into getting Amelia to America to work with Soma.The reason we have to go to America as there is no one yet in Australia qualified to teach this method of communication and learning. The gofundme link will be posted down below shortly.


Amelia is bubbling with potential. To give her means to communicate can open up a whole new world for her. We are hoping this could help pioneer education for children with autism in Australia.

I hope you follow our journey through this blog. I will endeavor to update as regularly as possible, and answer any question, queries, or comments that you may have. Please also share around with anyone you know that may benefit from hearing our stories and sharing in our journey. Or anyone that may like to support our girl!

Much Love, Liz