Providing a Voice – Who Knew?
One of the by-products of working on a site like Autisable is hearing the responses and insights from people.
My last post talked about how Kate Winslet was inspired to start a foundation because she was a part of something – narrating a movie.
Lately I’ve been inspired by Carly Fleishmann. She’s a young woman with Autism who is non-verbal. She communicates through the written word, spelling out each of her thoughts one letter at a time.
It’s painstaking to even think that in order for her to communicate, she has to think out each letter of each word…but she pushes through and does it.
Through technology she has been provided a voice, and she’s using it to it’s fullest potential. Here’s a video of her story as featured on 20/20 (which just surpassed 1.4 million views):
She also watches Ellen, and Ellen has talked about Carly periodically on her Talk show.
Last October I had the opportunity to attend an Autism Summit. The local public schools special ed division was in attendance as well.
One of their representatives told me that they purchased a program that would allow them to network their computers so the kids with Autism that the have could be able to ‘talk’ to one another. It was described as a social network for their kids, but it just wasn’t connected to the Internet.
I did share with them that there is an individual in Canada who is non-verbal and has Autism, and she utilizes social media to communicate….her name, Carly Fleishmann.
This representative then asked me if Autisable could be used in the same fashion, as one of their concerns is what would happen when these kids become adults? I said, Of course! 🙂
I never thought about Autisable being used as a means for non-verbal Autistic individuals being able to communicate in this fashion… but it’s very encouraging.
Carly does have a petition now – to have an Autism-Friendly Talk Show Day for Autism Awareness Month. Please take a moment to read the petition and sign it – I think it’d be great if talk shows embraced this idea.
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That video was astounding. A predictive text word processor (like on phones) would help her. Thank you so much for the link.