Author and parent J.B. Handley has done much to advance the Spellers program and method for people who are labeled "profoundly autistic" and are presumed to have impaired cognitive abilities. The reality is the opposite: their cognition is not impaired -- but their motor skills are.
In this new post, Handley writes: "I was wrong [about my son being mentally impaired] —not slightly wrong, but wrong by a trillion miles. The shift began in late 2019 when another autism parent sent me screenshots of her non-speaking son spelling sophisticated thoughts on a letterboard. I remember staring at the screenshots in disbelief. The language was too sophisticated, too reflective, too emotionally nuanced. It seemed impossible. And I want readers to really sit with that fact for a moment, because my first instinct was not belief. It was dismissal."
Read the rest here and please share with those who have "autistic" children.