PORTRAIT: Melanie & Sofia Cowpland ...
ADVENTURES WITH AUTISM
T
here’s something familiar with the story being
told by Melanie and Sofia Cowpland, not the
challenges but certainly the desires, the loves,
the results. We sat down and had a chat with this
mother and daughter dynamic duo who look all
challenges in the eye and take them head on …
to happen and as Melanie says, the Asian people are so
kind and love kids. She was supported by strangers yet
despite this the experience sent Melanie into a wild panic
and there she decided that travel was no longer an option
… not until Sofia was old enough. Then it was a case of
“right, we’re going!”
And when the time did come (November 2015), they re-
“I didn’t know she was autistic,” explains Melanie of
ally did get going. Africa, with Melanie riding and Sofia,
Sofia who she took backpacking around Asia at the age of who at the age of ten, navigated their Ural sidecar outfit
two. “Not surprisingly she just melted down the entire
the length of the continent. For many this would seem
way, it was the most stressful experience I have ever had.” like a crazy undertaking, perhaps even dangerous howev-
It’s a stark admission and perhaps one that many would er, Melanie sees it differently and that difference makes a
ask, ‘how could you not know?’ or ‘why would you do
lot of sense.
that?’. But it’s not that simple. Diagnosing autism can’t
“Sofia’s world was too safe and predictable,” Melanie
be undertaken biologically, it needs to be completed by
says. “I could see it was a future of severe physical, emo-
observation of the individual by trained health profes-
tional and mental disability. And once I saw that, I knew
sionals.
I had to do something.”
As it turned out, Asia was the perfect location for it
That was to place them both in situations where Mel-
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