After 3 Years Of Silence, Autistic Girl Finally Makes One Simple Request!

After three years of complete silence, autistic 5-year-old Coco Bradford shocked her mother by declaring, “I want more toast please,” out of the blue in a moment that her mother Rachel Bradford calls “magical.”

“It was the first thing she has said in three years,” the Cornwall, England, mom said. “Her exact words were, ‘I want more toast please.’ She just kept saying it, and we were just like, ‘Oh my god.’ She looked so pleased with herself and was jumping up and down and just kept saying, ‘I want more toast.’” And despite the fact that, “you are not supposed to show how excited you get as kids link power with that word,” Rachel said, “We just couldn’t control it. We were clapping and cheering.” 

Coco hadn’t always been nonverbal. She’d begun speaking as a toddler, only to stop after she turned 2, according to Rachel, who with her husband, Luke, has four other kids (Bianca, 28, Chelsea, 25, Elle, 22, and Oakley, 8). “Coco was talking at 26 months but did not get to more than two word sentences,” she explained. “But her talking just faded away and she stopped responding to her name or making any eye contact. You could tell she was just so frustrated. We tried a speech therapist but the last two years have been horrendous. You could tell [how] angry she was becoming with herself"

According to the organization Autism Speaks, an estimated 25 percent of individuals living with autism spectrum disorders are nonverbal. 

But the specialized applied behavioral analysis therapy that they were able to begin with Coco last September — thanks to donors’ contributions of more than $21,000 — gave them hope. And now, with Coco’s incredible “toast” request, it seems the sky’s the limit.