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Helicopter's thermal imaging helps save a young autistic girl lost in a Florida swamp

“I just love how the deputy greeted her. What a beautiful ending. You guys are the best!”

A deputy locates a missing girl in a Florida swamp.

A 5-year-old with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) wandered off into a swamp near Tampa, Florida, around 5:00 pm on Monday, February 26. The good news is that the girl was saved in about an hour thanks to the work of some brave sheriff’s officers and their incredible thermal technology.

The girl wandered from her home and was quickly reported missing by her family to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department. The sheriff quickly dispatched its aviation unit that used thermal imaging technology to scan the nearby swamplands to try to find the young girl before nightfall.

Thermal imaging technology captures images based on the heat emitted by objects, allowing us to see temperature differences even in the dark, making it super handy for night vision and heat detection. The thermal technology helped the officers quickly identify the girl from high above the trees.

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Photo pulled from YouTube video

What kids with autism see.

Imagine everything you'd experience while strolling through a mall — the smells, the sights, the things to touch...

Now imagine all of those feelings and sensations times, like, a hundred.

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National Autistic Society/Youtube

"Diverted" educational video shared through the Too Much Information Campaign.

Everyone who lives with autism experiences it somewhat differently. You'll often hear physicians and advocates refer to the spectrum that exists for those who are autistic, pointing to a wide range of symptoms and skills.

But one thing many autistic people experience is sensory processing issues.

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Mom's videos show how her nonverbal son communicates.

Autism is a pretty broad spectrum and each autistic person is unique, with their own capabilities and limitations. There is no one-size-fits-all autism diagnosis or characteristics, so you may run into autistic people who are really bubbly and talkative, but you may also meet some who have limited or no vocabulary with more complex challenges.

Some people may believe that nonverbal autistic people either don't communicate or don't know how to communicate. One mom is challenging that perception with the videos she uploads to social media proving that using words isn't the only way someone can get their point across. Shae runs the TikTok account shae_n_stece where she shows the interactions she has with her nonverbal son, Ste'ce.

Shae gives her followers an inside look at how communication works without words. While she does plenty of talking herself, it's clear that Ste'ce's facial expressions are an equally valuable part of the conversation.

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