Susan Senator

I was working on the last chapter of my book, where I talk about parents’ recommendations for the future, and a young man with Asperger’s wrote to me, asking if I’d like his opinion. I am so glad that he did that, because it got me thinking again about Nat and wondering about the world from his perspective. I guess I had been thinking about how stimmy he has been lately, and I was now feeling a little guilty about letting him be that way. You know, aren’t I supposed to be trying to make him as “functional” as possible? To blend in? For that is what I’ve heard many times, from educators and others.

And suddenly, after reading what this young man wrote to me about how nonverbal autistics need more tools to help them communicate and to help the rest of the NT world to understand them, I was so ashamed. I thought of Amanda Bagg’s video, and watched it again. I had a lump in my throat watching her familiar movements, and it made me miss Nat so much, and then I was so horrified at myself for having momentarily lost what is most important: letting Nat be Nat. Amanda shows herself, throughout her video, going through every one of the five senses, interacting in one way or another with something in the room, rocking and looking veyr much the way Nat does when he is doing his thing. She says, (and I’m paraphrasing, and I hope this reference is okay with her) “Ironically, when I interact with every aspect of my environment, it is called ‘being in my own world,’ but if I limit my responses to only a limited few things, I am thought to be opening up to the world.” She also says (paraphrasing again) “My inability to speak in your language is seen as a deficit, whereas your inability to speak in mine is seen as natural.”

Watch this video and you will, hopefully, really feel what I am saying.