I wrote the essay below for a school essay contest about what would make our community “better together”. The idea of feeling different from everyone else is a good justification for why you don’t have any friends …until you want to make friends. Somewhere along the way, feeling different becomes an excuse for various deficiencies…
Category: Education
Just When You Thought I Was Done Talking About Autism: My Plea for Others
Mom typing here… Everything my son had written before this was just a stream-of-consciousness exercise, followed by a few hours of editing. In an effort to get through the end of a homeschooling book on Middle School English at the beginning of summer, I found a chapter on composition, and used it to help him…
Learning to Spell: Piecing Myself Together
The year spent working on the letterboard with my mom has been the best year of my life. I have allowed myself to be known. I have also gotten to know my mother as well. Before this journey began, I was locked up inside my head, looking for a way to show the world I…
How I Learned to Break Out of My Shell: an Autistic Boy’s Perspective on Communication
I learned to communicate on a letter board this year and it has changed my life in immeasurable ways. A letter board is a plastic stencil board with the alphabet on it that I touch to spell out my thoughts. Before this year, I was locked inside. I couldn’t express myself at all. I didn’t…