- Smart guy who loves hiking
- Intern for Nurture Nature Center
- Letterboard learner
- Advocate for non-speakers
- Journalist
- Music aficionado
- Someone, mom, who mostly makes you proud
- I’m also thinking neuroscientist
I wrote this list at the end of the school year when I was mostly just thinking of myself as a guy who hated school. I didn’t really hate school, I hated how I made more mistakes than I wanted to and lost my confidence. Not how I imagined the year going!
My therapist, the awesome Miss Virginia, challenged me to set the record straight in my head. “Who are you really?” she asked me. I’m an amazing person!
And I’m getting all this against the odds. I’ve long hated using autism as a label to define myself. I’m a really smart guy who is sensitive to others’ emotions and that isn’t what people think of when they think of autism. But there are so many autistic people like me that it’s time to change the definition. And that’s especially true for non-speakers, who are always underestimated.
Now for my big news: I’m a speller! Through my friend, Matthew, I’m making more progress communicating with people beyond my immediate family than I ever have before! I’m participating in the life-changing Spelling 2 Communicate (S2C) movement. I’m working with the exceptional Miss Mimi to master the letterboard and making big progress, which is the best! My favorite part of this method is how it presumes competence and won’t stop presuming competence even if I make mistakes. I’m a major proponent of all non-speakers trying this!
