When you were little, did you ever close your eyes and just listen to what was going on around you? School bus chatter. Birds chirping in the yard. Storm clouds swirling overhead. Conversations at a family picnic. Your imagination would take over creating mental pictures of what you were hearing. Sometimes your mental pictures matched reality when you opened your eyes. Sometimes they didn’t.

When you focus your auditory skills, it feels like you can actually hear more than when you’re using your eyes at the same time. Sometimes our eyes tell us one thing that may not really be the case. We learn so much more by truly listening and realizing there’s always more than meets the eye.

Everyone wants to be truly heard and not judged at face value. It makes us feel validated and worthwhile. We are all deeper than what people see on the outside. Families who live with special needs of any kind know this more than just about anyone. A special need can be seen or unseen. Either way the family member with the special need is a person first…a treasured loved one and member of their community.

The Little Rock Family magazine team started our Special Family publication five years ago to give central Arkansas families dealing with special needs a voice and a resource. Every family we’ve met, every story we’ve shared, every special moment of working on Special Family over the years have touched our lives and filled our hearts immeasurably with love, admiration and respect. We are humbled and honored to convey the message that children with special needs are oh so much more than what might hinder them in some capacity and more than what others see at times.

Little Rock Special Family was recently recognized nationally with the Parenting Media Association’s Gold Award for Overall Excellence. We owe the kudos for that achievement to all of you! Thank you for being the inspiration for what drives us daily to do what we do. We are more than words and pictures, more than a publication, and more than meets the eye. Just as it has been for 20 years, Little Rock Family's mission is to help strengthen families. We are here for you!

Click here to read the June 2014 digital edition of Little Rock Special Family, where you'll find uplifting stories about local special families and a guide of 125 resources for special needs of all kinds.