I notice the media is suddenly writing about typers. See here in USA Today and here in the Chicago Tribune. I am pleased to see the attention, but curious too, though the trend is definitely interesting. More and more autistic people are communicating daily. The status quo is slowly moving in the right direction.
I know we are a long way from a new way of educating people with autism. ABA is still the default “gold standard” but despite this, somehow our silent voices are starting to be heard.
In terms of advocacy, some people are starting organizations. One family has started a new organization called Point to Freedom. They want to be loud and proud about their son’s success in learning to type to communicate and with his journey, to hopefully inspire other families to realize that typing to communicate may be possible for them too. I am proud of the son’s accomplishments expressing his lovely and powerful thoughts and also proud of my mom who taught him to communicate. May he go far with this freedom.
Finally, as I have written about previously, the civil rights of nonspeaking and limited speaking people is at last being addressed by the important new civil rights organization, Communication First.
Though there remains much to do, change is afoot. I believe the trend is toward liberation. In time the truth will prevail.
Thank you for being a pioneer, Ido! It does feel like the tide is turning!!
Awesome article, Ido. Finally people are starting to learn to take people that communicate like we do seriously. Keep getting the word out.
I sure hope the tide is turning! The world will become a more beautiful place with all these new silent voices added to it. I wish we could all just have a direct soul to soul communication line – but until then I celebrate every glimpse we can get into each others true being. By whatever means possible. Which even includes sitting together in silent togetherness.