More from The Spectrum of Opportunity Conference, Parent Panel

Here is another great speech from the great Spectrum of Opportunity conference. Hopefully you can get encouraged by Duval Capozzi’s speech. I recently posted his son, Samuel’s speech, and here Sam’s father tells the story of from a father’s point of view. Importantly, he seems to have no interest in regret or in feeling down about the time his son didn’t communicate. Rather, he rejoices in the miracle of his son going from silent and unable to communicate and believing his son had no ability to understand basic concepts, to a son who types his thoughts and is now a freshman with a 4.0 GPA in a university. I hope that many parents take his message to heart and rethink autism.

Good afternoon! My name is Duval Capozzi, I’m Samuel’s dad, and I am in the honored role of being a Dad’s voice! As involved as I have been, I must say—most of these moms, my wife included are “Navy Seal Moms!!”

Samuel’s name means, “asked of God’, and boy, did God answer! He’s been our biggest blessing, and his life has enriched ours in incredible ways. We have delighted in him all the days of his life!

Samuel started to communicate using the letter-board and iPad at the age of 16 ½ in May of 2012. To some that would be late in the game while for others maybe not. Either way, it was perfect timing for us—perfect timing for him. He was so ready; he took off like a rocket! As far as I understand, his response to learning and implementing the method was quicker than most. I’m not sure why, but it was.

A year before that, my wife Kathy started to research and pursue RPM (Rapid Prompting Method) and suggested that we visit Austin, Texas and visit Soma.Now, at first I was very cautious and not as excited as her (tried many things and have spent lots of money on things that gave little results).

So we saved up, got on the list and made the trip in May 2012. Initially, we were hoping to get some novel phrases from Samuel—something that truly came from him, not something memorized. Boy, did we get the shock of our life!

While we were there, Samuel was able to share several personal feelings that we never heard or knew about him, and his communication started taking on a whole new meaning during that week. We were shocked. We are his biggest fans and advocates, yet even we had no real idea of what was going on in our boy’s mind. We knew he was capable of so much more than he was able to articulate or demonstrate, but we had no idea!

We came home and within two weeks, Samuel was spelling out simple conversations, explaining what his faith in God meant to him and that he wanted to get baptized. First things first!

He began asking questions about marriage/girlfriends. Could he learn how to drive? And he wanted a cell phone and Facebook account. We laugh because he was after all a teenager, but this is stuff we had no idea he either understood or cared about. We were continually surprised at what had been hidden inside of him. We sometimes still are. These are things we were resolved to not know…to never hear this side of heaven. Can you imagine our shock? Our joy? Our relief? We could ask him if he was in pain. We could ask him how he felt. We could ask him what he wanted to do, eat etc.!

Our understanding of him, of autism, and how to support meaningful communication with him was so misguided, was so wrong. As you can imagine, our hearts and minds were elated! Our life as we then knew it what was forever changed!

We have homeschooled Samuel since 2nd grade for a number of reasons. As he described, he went from VERY remedial math to pre- algebra from May to August of the same year. My wife sat with him all summer remediating and discovering any gaps that he may have had. In high school he took 3 years of Latin (Why) He said, “Because I want to be a lawyer!” Talk about a shock!

To give you an idea of where we were at this time, we had no idea that he even knew what a lawyer was. I think this is key—key because no matter which direction you go as a parent, educator, therapist or otherwise—just because someone is non-speaking doesn’t mean they are non-thinking. My son taught me that—in a new way—in a life changing way. He told us over and over that, “I was ALWAYS LISTENING.”

He was learning, as he describes as ‘incidentally’ all the time. How we think. How we act. What we expect from our kids and loved ones MATTERS. We won’t speak to our loved ones as if they understand if we don’t believe that they DO understand. We won’t invest in someone if we think they’re not understanding-they are. I hope this is a Take-Away for someone today.

Again, Samuel graduated high school last June and is nearly finished with his first year of college at CSU Channel Islands as a Political Science major. Samuel believes he has a calling in his life to be an advocate for those who have special needs, for those he believes are marginalized and misunderstood. He says “I want to be a voice for the voiceless” —I know what that’s like.

Frankly, for 16 ½ years Samuel was unable to tell us what he really wanted, what he thought, or how he REALLY felt. He didn’t have a voice. He was trapped. Now we can, and do, have deep conversations about life and his future. It’s priceless.

As you can imagine, it has been such a healing time for him and for us. This has made an amazing impact on our son’s quality of life and on our family’s life, and I am so glad I listened to my wife and went to Texas back in 2012.

He still deals with the various trials of having autism, living with a diagnosis of autism is very difficult for most people. But now he can learn and communicate like others even if in a slightly different way.

I truly hope this has helped some of you to understand our son’s journey to meaningful communication. What a joy to be sharing our Samuel and his breakthrough with you today!

*Afterthought- not every person’s response will be exactly as my son’s was. Nonetheless, searching for a reliable means of communication for your loved one is important.