Carly’s Voice: My reflections

I am currently starting to read the book “Carly’s Voice” by Arthur Fleischmann and Carly Flesichmann. Carly, a teenager diagnosed with non-verbal autism, reveals her inner voice to the world by typing her thoughts on a keyboard.

In earlier posts, I have recommended this book since I have heard such great reviews. I personally respect Carly and have been inspired by her story. I am excited to actually read through her book and to share my thoughts over the next couple of weeks of what I learn.

Carly is the reason why I want to eventually study the language development of non-verbal autistic children. I believe that every child has an inner voice waiting to be unlocked by those willing to be both patient and hopeful. I think we should have high expectations for every child and not lose hope in a person’s ability to communicate. Although communication will look different for all people, we must find a way to decode the messages a child is sending. I question if we should simply overlook hand flapping or stimming as “random”—but view these body movements of a possible way of communication. Gestures, as well as facial expressions, body movement and posture, eye contact, and touch are all types of nonverbal communication. In students who are autistic, I would like society to take notice of the various gestures autistic students make.

Non-verbal body language makes up the majority of a human’s actual communication. In recent studies, I have been surprised to see why more research has not been done studying the body movements of autistic children more closely. Can we possibly find a correlation between the number of hand flaps per minute or the length of a child’s stimming to the way the mind of an autistic child’s brain works?

As I hope must of us believe, the brain of an autistic child is not silent. There is thought, there is feeling, and there is a voice inside that person waiting to be revealed to the world. Our job is to help those children to use their “voice” in a way we both understand.

My hope for 2013 and the years after is for society to look for ways to make more voices be heard. I would love to hear other testimonies such as Carly’s story and find  a way to help many children trapped in their own bodies.

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