Resident credits Discovery Museum programs with helping autistic twins develop language

A resident who spoke during public comment said the Discovery Museum’s family-focused events and exhibits helped her 6-year-old autistic twins begin speaking and later develop an extensive spoken vocabulary.

The resident, identified in the transcript as Speaker 1, said the twins began visiting the museum when they were starting to gain a grasp of words and ‘‘clicked’’ with the exhibits. "They didn't have much spoken language, but we knew that they were interested in learning," she said, adding that over the years she has watched them "grow, develop" and now have a "very extensive spoken language."

She described the museum’s events for families of children with various diagnoses and said the hands-on exhibits encouraged the twins to experiment and showed visible cognitive progress. "You can see the cogs turning in their mind, and it's fantastic to be able to see that," the resident said, summarizing how play with exhibits supported the children’s engagement and language growth.

The comment focused on the personal, developmental benefits observed by a parent and did not include requests for specific board action or funding in the provided transcript. The transcript records the remark as part of public comment; no vote or formal directive about museum programming is included in the excerpt provided.