I remembered watching a 20/20 episode about a girl who was non-verbal who started to communicate at the age of 11 through typing. When asked a question, she could respond with a computer. How exciting is that a severely autistic girl taught herself how to read and write and communicate. When asking her questions, she can answer by typing one letter at a time.
Carly Fleishmann describes what it is like to be autistic.
"You don't know what it feels like to be me, when you can't sit still because your legs feel like they are on fire or it feels like a hundred ants are crawling up your arms."
"It is hard to be autistic because no one understands me. People look at me and assume I am dumb because I can't speak."
"I think people get a lot of their information from so-called experts but if a horse is sick, you don't ask a fish what's wrong with the horse. You go right to the horse's mouth."
My son bangs his head at times. I often wondered about that. She answered this and it is something to think about.
Carly says, "Because if I don't it feels like my body is going to explode. It's just like when you shake a can of coke. If I could stop it I would but it is not like turning a switch off, it does not work that way. I know what is right and wrong but it's like I have a fight with my brain over it."
About my son when he hums and flaps his arms, I found that this is what Carly had to say.
Carly: "It's a way for us to drown out all sensory input that over loads us all at once. We create output to block out input."
I don't know what made me think of this episode or how I remembered it but somehow it just crossed my mind tonight and I wanted to research it more. If you go here http://abcnews.go.com/2020/MindMoodNews/story?id=8258204&page=1 you will be able to read more on her or go to her site here http://carlysvoice.com/
Watch Carly's story on 20/20 here http://youtu.be/34xoYwLNpvw
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