Mother writes of struggle to overcome son's condition and ignorant attitudes
17th October, 2004
by Kalpana Mistry
When Shahidun Rahman's baby was born in 1990, he was healthy and happy. It wasn't until he was two years old she realised something might be wrong, and many years later until she was able to put a name to the condition. Her problem was compounded by conservative attitudes within her community that dictated problems regarding abnormal medical conditions be swept underneath the carpet.
Dispirited that she didn't have much to go on and facing resistance from her own close-knit Bangladeshi community, Rahman has written a book titled Ibrahim – Where in the Spectrum Does He Belong?, which she hopes will help others beset by similar issues.
"We all thought that he would grow into a normal boy, but his father was denying that there was a problem. It was only a few years later that he really began to understand. During these early years, I felt that I was alone and not being supported the way I would like to have been. It was very difficult coping with Ibrahim's language problem while at the same time trying to make his father understand what I myself was trying to understand," she writes.
Eventually the wife and mother from Cambridge found out her son Ibrahim had SPLD (Semantic Pragmatic Language Disorder which comes under Autism). She says there was a definite lack of reading material on the subject, particularly for the Bangladeshi community, which encouraged her to write the book.
In that quest she joins a growing number of Asian women who have started writing about health problems their children or other family members are suffering from.
Children with this disorder have difficulty understanding what other people say to them, and they do not understand how to use speech to make themselves understood. Most children diagnosed as having SPLD, for example, usually have difficulty understanding socially interactive relationships and may not know what is expected of them in various situations.
"I think most people who knew Ibrahim labelled him as being strange, which is a difficult thing for a parent to accept. In role-play situations, he imitated the things he had seen the adults doing, because he lacked imagination. He was able to mimic others but unable to develop his own ideas. ... He wasn't able to understand the feelings of others, as he couldn't communicate properly," she says in the book.
Written in a simple and straightforward style, Shahidun Rahman traces Ibrahim's progress at each stage of his early life in an autobiographical format. The book recounts how the family was initially bewildered in by his unusual behaviour, later accepting it and trying to deal with it while helping him overcome his difficulties.
Now at the age of 13 Ibrahim has overcome almost 90% of his difficulties and is about to start secondary school. His two brothers also experienced delayed speech but neither developed any long term problems.
Rahman says: "My aim in writing the book is to highlight the struggles of a parent dealing with a child with learning difficulties especially within the Asian community. It is written from a mother’s perspective and the aim is to give hope to those struggling under similar circumstances. I feel I have come through so many trials to reach the stage where I am today and I would like to help others undergoing similar trials."
You can buy the book from Amazon.co.uk here.
She has also launched a website about the book.
When Shahidun Rahman's baby was born in 1990, he was healthy and happy. It wasn't until he was two years old she realised something might be wrong, and many years later until she was able to put a name to the condition. Her problem was compounded by conservative attitudes within her community that dictated problems regarding abnormal medical conditions be swept underneath the carpet.Dispirited that she didn't have much to go on and facing resistance from her own close-knit Bangladeshi community, Rahman has written a book titled Ibrahim – Where in the Spectrum Does He Belong?, which she hopes will help others beset by similar issues.
"We all thought that he would grow into a normal boy, but his father was denying that there was a problem. It was only a few years later that he really began to understand. During these early years, I felt that I was alone and not being supported the way I would like to have been. It was very difficult coping with Ibrahim's language problem while at the same time trying to make his father understand what I myself was trying to understand," she writes.
Eventually the wife and mother from Cambridge found out her son Ibrahim had SPLD (Semantic Pragmatic Language Disorder which comes under Autism). She says there was a definite lack of reading material on the subject, particularly for the Bangladeshi community, which encouraged her to write the book.
In that quest she joins a growing number of Asian women who have started writing about health problems their children or other family members are suffering from.
Children with this disorder have difficulty understanding what other people say to them, and they do not understand how to use speech to make themselves understood. Most children diagnosed as having SPLD, for example, usually have difficulty understanding socially interactive relationships and may not know what is expected of them in various situations.
"I think most people who knew Ibrahim labelled him as being strange, which is a difficult thing for a parent to accept. In role-play situations, he imitated the things he had seen the adults doing, because he lacked imagination. He was able to mimic others but unable to develop his own ideas. ... He wasn't able to understand the feelings of others, as he couldn't communicate properly," she says in the book.
Written in a simple and straightforward style, Shahidun Rahman traces Ibrahim's progress at each stage of his early life in an autobiographical format. The book recounts how the family was initially bewildered in by his unusual behaviour, later accepting it and trying to deal with it while helping him overcome his difficulties.
Now at the age of 13 Ibrahim has overcome almost 90% of his difficulties and is about to start secondary school. His two brothers also experienced delayed speech but neither developed any long term problems.
Rahman says: "My aim in writing the book is to highlight the struggles of a parent dealing with a child with learning difficulties especially within the Asian community. It is written from a mother’s perspective and the aim is to give hope to those struggling under similar circumstances. I feel I have come through so many trials to reach the stage where I am today and I would like to help others undergoing similar trials."
You can buy the book from Amazon.co.uk here.
She has also launched a website about the book.
