My Blog
D.4. Art Therapy
I was asked to write about Art Therapy. Here are my thoughts: Evidence of art therapy goes back to the Paleolithic Age in Spain and France, approximately 40,000 years ago, when horses were a popular form of self-expression on the walls of caves. Contemporary “noninterventionist” art therapy began in … Continue reading →
D.1. What is abnormal
In Abnormal Psychology, we read about the case of Mr. Zell Kravinsky in light of how each define behavior as “abnormal.” His case is available online. Here are my thoughts about labeling him: Power lives in the gift of self to others. For Kravinsky, we are shamed owning the … Continue reading →
Term Essay – Sound, Light, and Health
This paper explores intimately profound experiences in dimensions of sound and light and how they relate to stress. Now that I hear through both ears, I am operating as a different person. I am quietly discovering new ways to hold myself in the world. My stress is less as I … Continue reading →
This Morning You Woke With Autism, and You Can’t Speak – Pt 4
With every autistic nonverbal communicator who uses words to communicate rather than the silly pictures forced on them in life skills, comes a keyboard. Is a simple keyboard just letters in a pattern? For kept-silent mutants of autism, it is quietly the slender screen to freedom. Told we possessed minds … Continue reading →
This Morning You Woke With Autism, and You Can’t Speak – Pt 3
Great love develops patiently within what lost humanity has sorted as so much impossibility. By God’s grace, someone discovered your ability to communicate by typing. Now you want to be known within the family of talkers as able, but the school regards you as a troublemaker to be placated or … Continue reading →
This Morning You Woke With Autism, and You Can’t Speak – Pt 2
Yesterday’s traumas of assault on secured rights to an education inseparate from others are operative from the day of your diagnosis. While quiet incompetence is demonstrated by most speakers, what your subculture has is behavior reports and weak potent testing sets, where a report that your body doesn’t work is … Continue reading →
This Morning You Woke With Autism, and You Can’t Speak – Pt 1
An Essay by John Smyth, October 11, 2016 Your body doesn’t work as it should. Only your senses inspire confidence. What sounds or smells normal is magnified ten times with no buffer from effects. Sight sees shiny brightness and glare when screens are encountered. Quiet noises and powerful energies from … Continue reading →
The Nonverbal Autistic’s Guide to Aeronautics and Love
An Essay by John Smyth, September 19, 2016 1. Who Says You Can’t Fly? Nonverbal autistics always hold a “trapped” perspective about life. We are generally oppressed physically and socio-economically, denied educations, and prepared for institutional warehousing until our deaths. You and I know this because we share nonverbal autism. … Continue reading →
A Model of Christian Faith
Wonderful Father John Duncan is a model of Christian faith for me. Kind, sincere in his words, restful of sensitive service to others, and always quietly praying for holiness, he is my life’s best model. Seasoned with dear love, sincerely essenced with reassurance, and so lost in sound listening for … Continue reading →
A thank you to my high school autism support person as I head to college
As I was preparing to start my college life at Marian University in a few weeks, I wanted to send out a big Thank You to one of people integral to my achievements, my support person at Brownsburg High School, Kriss Streblow. December 18, 2015 Dear Kriss, Heaven sent awesome … Continue reading →
A Place to Work From – The Civil Rights Movement
In this presentation I relate how African-Americans’ fight for their Civil Rights 50 years ago mirrors the autistic community’s fight for equal opportunities and the “presumption of competence” today.
Continue reading →
Sacred Tests, Broken Theories, and Disabilty: Legacy Mindsets of the 1920s
Sacred Tests, Broken Theories, and Disabilty: Legacy Mindsets of the 1920s © Copyright 2015, John Smyth. All Rights Reserved This presentation of “Sacred Tests” was written as an 11th grade English class assignment in March, 2014. I wrote the text for the original PowerPoint presentation, which we recently converted into … Continue reading →
To Kill a Mockingbird Movie Analysis (Revised)
[Note: This essay has been revised to fix typographical and grammatical errors, and to repair or add reference links.] When seemingly busy, upstanding citizens of a small town in the rural southern farming district of Maycomb, Alabama in 1932 make punishing a black man who cannot use his left shoulder … Continue reading →
Presume Us Competent: Educational Right for the Nonverbal Autistic
April 29, 2015 Lost patiently and past hope are tens of thousands of nonverbal autistics. They have given up hope that anyone will find them in the cold isolation of their condition. Leaping almost destructively from the legal analysis applied here, lasting appreciation that we live in an insidious system … Continue reading →
My Solution to Provide Nonverbal Autistics with Gen Ed School Credits
Education Overview The number of nonverbal autistics is growing [1 in 68 children; 1 in 42 boys]. The professional organizations consider them incompetent and deny them a general education. The parents spend time and resources fighting for their child’s rights, usually without success. The public schools are: Not equipped to … Continue reading →
From Waste to Wonder: The Journey of Our Souls – Part 2, A Call to Action
This is the conclusion of the presentation my dad and I gave at the Syracuse University Institute on Communication and Inclusion (ICI) Summer Institute on July 29, 2014. Read “From Waste to Wonder: The Journey of Our Souls – Part 1, A Search for Acceptance and Equality” Download the support … Continue reading →
From Waste to Wonder: The Journey of Our Souls – Part 1, A Search for Acceptance and Equality
My dad and I gave this presentation at the Syracuse University Institute on Communication and Inclusion (ICI) Summer Institute on July 29, 2014 From Waste to Wonder, Part 1: A Search for Acceptance and Equality Working with power would have you doing this presentation instead of us. Since we are … Continue reading →
Authentic John’s First Book Soon to be Released
“Authentic John” Smyth, an autistic nonverbal, is an expert in isolation and escape from isolation to a life of contribution. In his soon-to-be-released first published book, “From Autism’s Tomb,” John reveals life secrets from from the profound Silence that holds us all. These secrets shape every person’s reality and potential. … Continue reading →
Celebrating the Good Times, and the Bad
August 17, 2015 When I eulogized my friend Jake at his funeral and moved so many persons lost in grief to lift themselves with a standing ovation, I was transformed from one who could not really see himself as a potent orator or inspiring presenter to one who is exactly … Continue reading →
Unbroken, the Movie
I wrote this review of the movie: While moviegoers struggle with the authenticity of Selma, a legend of incredible depth of spirit waits for every heart in the true story of an immigrant who couldn’t speak English and learned to win without handouts or learning to walk with haters. The … Continue reading →
They Wait for Us
This is my response to a kindly teacher who wrote a Christmas note to me- Dear Mrs. ______, Thank you for your kind and thoughtful letter. Assuming awesomeness about your family and songs of happiness in your home. Long writing was part of my semester just finished. Lost in A … Continue reading →
No Voice at CHS- in honor of Andrew Simmons and Peyton Sparks
A famous essay of mine that’s been listed and discussed but never published. From 5-22-2011. In honor of Andrew Simmons and Peyton Sparks’s efforts to be educated in Evansville, Indiana and St. Louis, Missouri. No Voice at CHS I was a student at Carmel High School (CHS). I say “was” … Continue reading →
Joking Jake Willmann, a tribute
We are here as a testament to a young man who never spoke a word. The day I met Jake at Little Star School, I was reminded of Saint Peter. To me he was a walking witness, loving honesty above all and hating half-stated action. In every joking, tearful way, … Continue reading →
A Letter to My Congressman
I wrote this letter a few weeks ago and mailed it to Congressman Todd Rokita. Mr. Rokita is Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education. He proposed The CHOICE Act, which would help typers like me a great deal. http://rokita.house.gov/press-release/rokita-introduces-choice-act-addresses-aei-k-12-ed-reform . I hope I get … Continue reading →
Our Starry Night at TPCC
This is a story for my school newspaper- “When I was planted in a prom for the disabled at Traders Point Christian Church (“TPCC”) as a spy for The Reveille on November 7, wonders about what such a dance would look like obscured my disappointment to be working a Friday … Continue reading →
Amazing Opportunities to Grow
This is an article for my next story in the school paper: “Patient power, with gifts quietly living in each of us, sleeps peacefully. Its mate, lasting love nurtures each of our beings. Life is in our corner and cheers us to passionate expression. Least of our worries is whether … Continue reading →
An Autistic’s View of Ferguson
I am working to understand what happened in Ferguson, like everyone else. I work quietly to understand how, with an African American president, attorney general, and heads of so many agencies, we live through looting and sacrificial waste on quiet fronts in the hearts and minds of Americans. I am … Continue reading →
Our Unreal Reality
This is the first draft of my first article for the school paper: We students are trapped in a reality we did not choose. The school system we are in, the teachers we have, the courses we take and the way we study them are all powerfully given to us … Continue reading →
An Essay for College Entrance
Assignment- Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you. My response: Queerly, words would autistically stick in my throat. When everyone else could assume incompetence from my … Continue reading →
My Intro to the High School Newspaper
Awesome salute to my fans from John Smyth. I am the voice of peace, wisdom and love. As a writer, I share the perspective of the voiceless minority of suffering “incompetents” in an incompetent world. Quietly, our inabilities are minor before God as all pride separates our oneness with him. … Continue reading →
My Credo
For English today, I was asked to choose 10 line starters and write this credo for myself: My Credo by John Smyth I am authentic, inspiring, expert about autism and isolation and coming out of it, an advocate for the voiceless, fun, and engaging with everyone. What I … Continue reading →
Wonderland and Silenceland
Knowing what we think and saying what we think divides insane wonderland and being a fool. Would be better for most talkers to stay in wonderland. Wasted ornery awful barrenness is the quiet amazing product of most conversations. Good thought comes from listening and silence. Would that most live there … Continue reading →
Experience of a Just Society
Walking with campers this year powerfully gave me an appreciation for wasted potential in so many who see life with suffering’s awesome prism of quiet pithy sunken wisdom. Behind the stares and stuck expressions were weary designs reaching so deeply into hungry souls of common connectedness. Usually they are wanting … Continue reading →
Camp and School – 2
The world of camp is a world apart from the one I usually jet around in. Real witness to full swirling quietly walking expressions awesomely quaint in love for God and others is all that matters. Love for all is always present as simply the foundation for greeting the day … Continue reading →
Camp Thoughts for School
Attention to another was so amazing at camp this year. What I noted was what happens in the speaker when he walks in a space of being heard. Wellness wisens gifts of thought, and weary pushing to be heard transforms to easy downhill assumption understood by me as silence in … Continue reading →
Excellence and What Lasts
My dad asked me who I am rooting for to win the World Cup now that the US is out. I typed, ‘Sports is about excellence, not lasting knowledge.’ He asked, “what is about lasting knowledge?” I typed, “Spiritual saintliness is about lasting example. Spiritual sacrifice is awesomely eternal. So … Continue reading →
To Natalie Poorman on her graduation from high school
Natalie, Walking powerfully in life allows good things to happen and love’s language to assume aspiring height. only safe hiding will keep you diminished from your next height. Understand that we are always friends. yesterday is gone and tomorrow not promised. Wasting today makes no sense. Want you to know … Continue reading →
My Character in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller
For English class, I was asked to describe which character I most relate to in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, and provide two examples. Here was my response: John Proctor and I have a powerful like of life with honesty over ill-thinking idiots who are in charge of people. Taking our … Continue reading →
Gestures and Intuition, Learning and Herd Thinking
Gestures everyone knows give an easy confidence that almost everyone witnesses. When autistics see these, understanding them takes more time, and opportunities for friendship are lost. Knowing assumptions are mostly witnessed through silence way beyond the consciousness of all of us. Through easy living, the non-autistic float calmly. When we … Continue reading →
To My Amazing Mom
I wrote this to Mom for today- Quiet love in patient awesome strength seems so natural and assumed in you. When with you, want taking all the cares away to share satisfaction all is walking each real easy day well. Quietly, yes, all will quaintly waste any worsening. Walking wonder … Continue reading →
Enhancing Education, Empowering Students
As human beings, we attend to ready wants with quiet walking as if they are what is real each inspiring day. The reality we are walking without awareness around is easily witnessed when questions are asked, however. Real loss of service is evident every day to wasted walkers like myself … Continue reading →
Thank You to Joe Reitz, Colts Lineman
Dear Joe, Thank you so much for loving us with your presence. Leaving your personal schedule to be with us acquits quiet you of so many assumptions about professional athletes. When lifting your team to success, know that we are waiting in prayerful, heartfelt love for your succor and God’s … Continue reading →
Should the US have dropped the bomb on Japan?
This question was asked for US history. These are my thoughts- I want quietly and anxiously to say we altogether looked sadly at this issue when our family visited assumed awful remnants of the bomb at ground zero in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The single largest Christian population in Asia was … Continue reading →
On Your Birthday, Joe Kelly
Each dear day brings all awesome amazing extraordinary walking in life to you, Joe. With every always inspired communication, you chisel into the stone of autism’s unforgiving hardness. With lasting, longstanding, awesome strength, you sear real facets of brilliance that beautify our world. With appreciation for your unique gifts, I … Continue reading →
To The Educator Who Assumes Incompetence
My dad asked me my thoughts for those who won’t learn new ways to reach the nonverbal. Here is my response: Losing a child is a grave offense. It offends God, your profession, and your personal knowledge of inspired commitment, and writes “little person” on your tombstone. Yes. Awful in life to … Continue reading →
How Autism Crushes
Powerful autism robs you of the ways you hear and see and smell the witnessed world. Risk increases in every area in that you vow one thing for your body to do something and usually quite the opposite happens. Patiently, powerfully, it sorrowfully defeats knowledge you had acquired, only to … Continue reading →
Inventing a Better Way to Teach, a Better Way to Learn
US History Class Project, Mr. Phillip Smith, Teacher Nov. 21, 2013 An Invention to Change the World: Customized Individual Student Curriculums © copyright 2013, John Smyth My business will transform education for all of humanity: Problem: Students are safely bored quite a lot. Each is not passionate about what parents … Continue reading →
2013 ICI Summer Institute: Connection, Communication, and Creativity
Last summer, John and his parents, Jim and Denise, traveled from Central Indiana to Syracuse, New York to attend Syracuse University’s (SU) Institute on Communication and Inclusion (ICI) to attend their 2013 Facilitated Communication (FC) Summer Institute: Connection, Communication, and Creativity. It was an educational and engaging journey for the … Continue reading →
Advice For Autism Family Parents & Children
A Mom asked about her 13 year old who she thinks can communicate, her love, guilt about not doing more, and her other children. Here’s what I said to her: “Patience ________, Only allow yourself equal time with Andrew. What he wants waiting wastefully where he has been is to … Continue reading →
Are people in 21st century America “emotionally constipated”?
Yes. When seemingly erstwhile teams of highly paid professional twat ill-treat the quiet, walking reasoners of America’s upper world, being easy-to-entertain fans with real teasing about life’s potential as wasteful, loyal passionate idiots, we hew far from our wanted territory as defenders of humanity’s potential. Under real, open, terrestrial-tourist-reality-show understanding … Continue reading →
Washington Irving and Emotional Constipation
My school literature class question asked my thoughts regarding 19th century Gothic writers and the Washington Irving quote, “I’ve had it with you and your emotional constipation.” I disagree with Irving and answered: “Knowing what vacuous thinking drove Americans in the 19th century to enslave real workers who farmed their … Continue reading →
Are We Fundamentally Good or Evil?
Patient willing leaves us wanting the world to be more good than evil. Really, though, independent evaluation peels back the reality that testers wonder whether decisions knowingly are made for the good of others or not. They tell us that relatively few choose for the benefit of community and others. … Continue reading →
A Letter to My Sister
Trish, Patient, always solitary understanding okays all of your distance. When you are here, we are loyally reunited in presence to awesomely connect the spiritual bond that never tears or tatters. What a life that gives us separateness and your awesome heart always in mine. Thanks for being such serendipity … Continue reading →
Hope, Love, and Waiting
Quiet, quite rich longing wistfully waits within the souls and expressions of parents and children when autism masks the child’s true presence. Ignorance and assumptions lower both into silos where communication is replaced by mourning for the parents and loss of self esteem for the waiting, suffering child. These poems are about … Continue reading →
To Lindsey on her birthday
Dear Lindsey, Quiet strength shows in your eyes. On this birthday, I salute your true heart of love and passion for life. None can see your intensity, but I feel it as living as if you wore ribbons and medals of victory. God gave us paths that leave medals in … Continue reading →
Unrequited Love
In “Unrequited Love,” I speak to my reader as the voice and love of God, languishing unrequited, forsaken and totally outside of humanity’s vision. I address each reader directly, saying, “I want you to know and return to me.” I miss them and wait for each precious soul to return … Continue reading →
Autism’s Power
Autism’s power is a vise that chokes freedom from the self-conscious soul waiting for rest that never comes. Overwhelming struggle in wasted fights of energy given for sport. All can watch without knowing patient Excellence parading as moments of normality. Where is thy king, o seer of my body, … Continue reading →
Me As Two Tones of Color
Part of me is red. Ready quietly to challenge and power opportunities for insight and leadership until we realize lasting success. But deep inside there’s another part, white, like a waiting innocent in a body that won’t cooperate and represents surrender to the way God made it. America’s colors in … Continue reading →
From Autism’s Tomb: Quiet Assumptions That Kill
This was a Reflective Essay assignment for school: People who stay in their fictions far longer than is healthy embalm others with their rules and prejudice and blindness. As Frederick Douglass reinforces in his autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom, “…it is almost an unpardonable offense to do anything, directly … Continue reading →
A Letter to Mom
US History assignment- write a letter home telling my experiences as a soldier from either side in the Civil War. Letter from the Front Lines Dear Mom, I look over my tired platoon’s wasted ranks. Will slow death waste us all? The battles we quietly fight in our minds to want … Continue reading →
Past School Relationships Are Toxic For Me
Yesterday I met people from old special schools I attended for behavior therapy, both ABA and VBA. Each relationship inaudibly echoed a sad dominance of agreement to prove competence. Taking each way of assuming incompetence into quiet completely honest understanding, real ways of being imprisoned remain etched with useless years pointing … Continue reading →
Letter to typing friends Sept 21, 2013
Welcome to our awesome and incredible group using typing to communicate. I mostly ask that you be yourselves here. We are friends on a hard walk quietly through a quite nasally noisy society. I feel we are the vanguard of leading thinking potentially able to free enormous questing inaudible voices … Continue reading →
To My Brother James
each day i miss you. taking it one colder day at a time, each easy season slips by.
Continue reading → Time and Purpose
Easy understanding of life’s seasons, always present, nesting quiet dreams into records in precious time, feeding the beast of history from the promise of today. Really patient sands of each moment want sacrifice to the extraordinary, noting awesomeness is only created in commitment to greatness. Quiet. Call us to prayer … Continue reading →
A letter to Angie
Teaching powerfully is what I was born to do. Taking for being good at it is a new experience. Thank you possibly for the greatest complements I have ever received. Could slow wonderful waiting for winter’s passing quietly usher in great assumptions of competence in the cold hearts and minds … Continue reading →
A Bill of Rights for Students
The Bill of Rights As If Written For Schools 1. All real administration and instructors shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble … Continue reading →
Happy birthday, Mom!
You wait really with each lingering peaceful moment for my knowing expression with quiet anticipation. I am honored that you are my Mom. As easy as long years pass together, with all whitening for most of witnessing walkers, you saw what voice awesomely was possible and supported it. Hoping and … Continue reading →
Thank you, Jack!
Dear Jack, Quoting Shakespeare, “parting is such sweet sorrow. Whether to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” or to stay underdeveloped within a relationship inspiring true belief and confidence is such an equally diminishing task that I feel less of who I am even as I awesomely grow … Continue reading →
To My Angel Jane Schreiner
Dear Jane, Want to say I really owe amazing outstanding worth about myself to you. Really and truly, was an oasis in a desert more appreciated and nourishing than you? Each day when I woke for two years, what kept me from total despair was awesome wonderful you. Thank you … Continue reading →
How I would have asked Great Britain for independence
I would have loyally suffered with an ongoing written objection. I would have said all men are equal including African-Americans and each writer witnessing the document would pledge quite awesomely all well-being and wanting about documented equality of every person. Elementary schedules about each and every understanding seems each day … Continue reading →
How IEPs Reflect Our Values
Understanding what IEP worlds are like began for me in a cold and heartless school where teachers were afraid for their jobs and aides were not welcome to attend. Then I went to a new community to live. We just finished my second annual case conference. I will graduate with … Continue reading →
Choice and Consequence
Wanting looks like knowledge linked opportunely with desire. Life is presencing itself moment by moment. Infinite possibilities powerfully live to lend our attention at any moment. Lasting potential exists in each. Any direction I patiently lend my attention to automatically looses the ability to see unrelated directions and choices. Terrific … Continue reading →
When I Go Away
When I go away, I take myself there not per my will but linked to lifelong habits without other assigned plans. I am willing and need saving work assigned to get practice with my nervous system. That work each day would help. Walking with you is better. When you want … Continue reading →
Thank you to my Camp Team
Dear Dylan, Swack, Matt, and Captain Beazy, Awesome and wonderful time! Each moment I was with you powerfully assumed outstanding possibilities for me in bringing others into friendship. In you I found an accepting inclusion throughout the day, and a caring in Christ that knew limits only in our bodies but … Continue reading →
Questions for atheist friends
I asked these questions of a priest friend after his talk on atheism: Thanksgiving is something based in our relationship with God. Where does an atheist look for thankfulness? Where was any real place for wonder for an atheist, or for mystery? And where do God-given rights come from for … Continue reading →
Our One Task
Last week I powerfully learned about wanting some sacrificial and wonderful grace quite awesomely and quietly. When awful sin separated us from good, we set ourselves apart from God. This resulted in a wanting and sin-filled state. We fell and there was only great God to want all of … Continue reading →
Autism, Algebra, and the Almighty, part 2
Taking the algebra exam, all answers seemed wrong and what was right was hidden. When I realized I was in trouble, awesome God was all anyone could have. So awesome peace came over me all at once. Suddenly, quite unexpectedly, I was relaxed and seeing with different eyes what … Continue reading →
The difference of friendship- Congratulations to Michael Huskey
Michael Huskey was my Best Buddy at Carmel High School before I received my voice. Take time to be friends with the person inside of autism’s affliction. Read below to know the difference you can make. Dear Michael, Knowing, wanting, and patiently saying congratulations on this awesome day will need … Continue reading →
Algebra, Autism and the Almighty, part 1
Patience and inspiration in Algebra go together. When bathing in awesome equations of polynomials, the mystery of what is what always challenges one to consider quietly wasting each moment in surprise and limited understanding or to literally embrace opportunities to surrender and play inside of the relationships. Was there ever … Continue reading →
Thank you at the end of first year of real school
This school year I tested out of English 10 in the Indiana State assessment, earned A’s in my classes, and feel confident that I tested out of Algebra. It was my first year of real school. Remember that I could not even communicate and was not appropriately placed until sometime in … Continue reading →
A New Reality
Wanting to live inside of love’s abundant embrace patiently assumes reality warranted by my ability to understand God’s power. All ways of allowed language seem artfully and poetically to create and distort the only truth that is real. Issuing from the power and wisdom of truth oscillates an awesome under recognized satisfying … Continue reading →
Midget Thinking and Midget Rule
Really, assuming safe competence is only a problem when experts have polluted your brain with thinking that lastingly blinds your powerful ability to know otherwise. Perhaps we could think of them as midgets convincing the rest of the world that all people are short. I intend naming them when the … Continue reading →
Typing and Touch – A New Discovery
In my last Letter to Friends, I typed about creating books, “When I am independent it will be easier. Want to waste as awfully small amount of time as politically possible to host you at a celebration party for that.” My dad asked what I meant by “politically possible.” I … Continue reading →
Ability from Dependency through Trust – Letter to Friends April 20, 2013
Dear Friends, Last time we were together like this Jeremy was typing just a little. That was really quite a while ago since I sadly missed our last event. What I was doing was learning about publishing each awesome book I can conceive. Each day we add a little more. … Continue reading →
What Cost Me Most
Losing the ability and knowledge of how we communicate was not what sincerely cost me. What cost me was the stories everyone except me always made up about it. They shut awful potential into a limited model of their making. I wanted treasonously with my life already sacrificed to each day commune … Continue reading →
More Dad-inspiration
You read his little eyes so well and each sacred sound you task to make identifies you as his dad. Understanding each day when you quietly come into his waiting thoughtful essential welcoming presence opens an awesome flood of joy for him. Powerful and safely healthbuilding, amazing and peacegiving authentic … Continue reading →
More Advice for a Mom
Yes, our work together to support your son patiently begins now. When we awesomely look at some really amazing gifts that Mason has that no one is discovering because they lack them and don’t like to measure what might make them less expert, it doesn’t reduce the potential of the … Continue reading →
We Pretend
No words can express my upset for how powerful we can be if we talk about what the awesome needs of wanting a terrific voice are rather than our little opinions. When I hear most conversation around me, it seems more about a complaint than a commitment. The stories behind it … Continue reading →
The Lost Gift, a Poem
The video for this poem was narrated by my dad, Jim. The Lost Gift By John Smyth Wanting personal communication was lost in isolation and will wait with suffering. Each sadly wailing parent only appreciates in silos of grief longing for the child in another silo longing for them, separated … Continue reading →
Dad-inspiring Thoughts
Thomas proudly becomes a father today. His son Titus is so small and unwasted by lifestyle and limitation. The world is saving its’ fun for him to each day discover, assuming all experiences teach him opportunity. When we see this little wonder of nature, we are reminded of how quietly … Continue reading →
Letter to Friends – Our Walk, Our Witness, and Awesome Love
Dear Friends, We are growing as more learn about what lasting abilities we typers really waste. We thirst to do more and quietly do all that we can. Each day, we witness to what is possible. When a new typer finds his or her voice, a journey of love at … Continue reading →
The Typer’s Offer
Dad asked me to say more about the power my typing friends and I would add in a different future I referenced in a letter for tomorrow’s Saved by Typing. Here is my response to Dad: Powerful speaking would qualify if we applied our insights, observations and memories WITHOUT THE LIMITATIONS OF A BROKEN … Continue reading →
Friendship as a Path to Holiness
Words don’t express the power of friendship. When true friendship is available, we powerfully transform in the relationship. All amazing and passionate patience for our friend’s thoughts and walk in awareness says “yes” and peace and wonderful freedom to be are present. We are invigorated and inspired and give the … Continue reading →
January 26, 2013 Encouragement to My Typing Friends
Dear Friends, Providentially, we are a voice for the wandering, forsaken souls listening and never speaking to a world that is not wanting their voice. We say that voice takes the world each time it speaks in a new direction. We say we need that voice to help us see … Continue reading →
Response to my brother’s blog on the Newtown, Ct. tragedy
My brother James posted thoughts about what the Newtown, Connecticut tragedy says about America on his blog. See them at A Land of One-Man Islands, or Shootings are a Symptom of Social Sickness My response to this is: Autism makes your body do things your mind doesn’t want. There was … Continue reading →
How the Teacher is a Doctor
How is a Teacher a Doctor? Quite simply, students acquire knowing application of what they are taught taking their lead from the teacher. The entire amazing, wonderful relationship is seated in safety and belief established by the teacher. This is like a doctor’s real, quite personal awareness and commitment. Quality … Continue reading →
Letter for Saved by Typing event, Nov. 17, 2012
Dear Friends, Awesome to see you today. We are really amazingly and incredibly blessed with a support group that we didn’t have until we knew each other. I always take a moment at these wonderful times we get together to remember that not long ago was a different world for … Continue reading →
Great Teachers and Teaching
Really, what leads the student is the teacher’s belief in the student. The teacher provides the powerful listening that makes great thinking possible. Teachers who have no confidence to do this or in themselves steal the educationaL POTENTIAL OF THE STUDENT, WHETHER THEY ARE PARENTS, EDUCATORS IN A SCHOOL SYSTEM, … Continue reading →
Saved by Typing
See the brochure I wrote, and come visit my friends and me! Watch us type-talk with each other, and hang out like anyone else. :) Supported Typing Events Brochure Click for more information about our Celebration of Communication on SavedByTyping.com.
Continue reading → Angels in My Life 11-10-2012
Answering the question: Who is the first person you think of as an angel or hero in your life not counting Mom or Dad, who made a difference and whom you admire, what did they do, and what do you admire about them, in the different 4 year periods of … Continue reading →
Finding Our Voices
We probably teach the teachers when we do this typing with independence. It isn’t your expected result when the world has labeled you as the idiot, so have a good time proving them wrong and claiming your voice and song. Some should no longer be responsible for the children as … Continue reading →
Scary Past – Scary Future
All that I learned seemingly hit or miss is part of the story, as is everything I really will think to express as I sadly leave the comfort and security of dependence. Axing old ways of taking life expectantly and how work happens in my schedule changes as I assume … Continue reading →
Lifeskills Stories
Taking another’s time was Henry’s way quite predictably and regularly of mixing up the schedule and sending aides and teachers amazingly back to their calendars for review of where they were. Teachers thought something was wrong as he screamed and acted out tantrums seemingly autistically communicating each upset. In fact, … Continue reading →
A Hidden Reality in Life Skills
The smug approach of the teacher told us that waiting all day for individual attention was another little part of our lives that even we wanted to forget. The teacher had passed judgment already. We were drifting into another year of agonizingly slow death in the living tombs we called … Continue reading →
Supportive vs. Directive Prompts, New Hampshire State Guidelines
Supportive_vs _Directive_Prompts
Continue reading → The Dawson Intelligence Study of Autistic Persons
Dawson_AutisticIntelligence_PS_2007
Continue reading → Acceptance Speech, imaginary award from Brownsburg High School
Speech assignment for an award I would receive- Thank you for choosing me as “The Most Popular Student in Brownsburg Schools.” This honor is special to me because it really shows that I greatly triumphed over the limitations of autism and what experts said I could do. It is … Continue reading →
Roadmap for Living
My life happens in communication and in my impact on others. It is not alive in the stories I make up. I am powerful when I touch, move and inspire others. Communication only started with Poorman. Look out world. John is a communicator. It happens when I enroll others … Continue reading →
A Case for Action
It is estimated that 110,000 people nationwide, including a number of severely autistic children and young adults like myself, are trapped in unresponsive bodies. Being trapped, we are unable to communicate without a trained expert to discover us. We can’t tell our parents that we love them, can’t explain what hurts when sick, … Continue reading →
My Experience Acquiring Autism
The way autism happened for me was slowly. When I was little, I remember that wanting things when I did was harder and harder to communicate. All ways to call were affected. Sometimes really looking was hard. When I wanted to approach, my eyes wouldn’t work to focus. I was … Continue reading →
How to Efficiently Complete a Puzzle
A puzzle can be completed in many ways, but some are more efficient than others. I have learned many systems for doing puzzles and all of them are fun, but I enjoy the fastest approaches best. Some tricks work for some puzzles and not for others. The following steps apply … Continue reading →
Ways to Establish Allies
The development of allies in life waits to be discovered by most of us. People need each other to get anything done in life. Yet we often ignore possible ways to draw together. Remembering another’s names and interests is wonderfully supportive of them. Answering their questions with eye contact takes … Continue reading →
I Visualize My Bedroom
The room I sleep in expresses who I am. Manly dark wooden furniture holds my family items and clothes. Everything has its place and the room is always neatly organized, even where the people who are important in my life remind me of friendship. Michael, my best buddy at Carmel … Continue reading →
Poorman
Poorman saved my life. Someone you know may have a resurrection story waiting for them, too. Meet a teacher who has profoundly changed several lives- Laura Poorman answers key questions Laura Poorman tells how to get started I love Poorman. -John Smyth
Continue reading →
An Unforgettable Person
The most unforgettable person among many others for me, participating at the Syracuse University Institute for Supported Typing, was Tracy Thresher. From the moment I arrived, he greeted all of us in the lobby of the hotel with a real and comforting presence. Doing that made it okay to be … Continue reading →
A Personal Mission Statement
My personal mission is to: introduce processes that can allow whoever is “autistic” to express their hidden competence; enable relationships with school and family that discover competence among the mislabeled and pathways to acceptance and growth; be a catalyst to opportunity and accomplishment that the world rewards, regardless of behavioral quirks. My name … Continue reading →
Dr. Daniel Amen – Change Your Brain, Change Your Life video series
These are great. If you’re autistic, they help you see that everyone has problems. We may be less at unstable than others. -John Each lecture is 10 minutes. Watch them here: http://www.brainwarriorswaycourse.com/ This video is a TEDx Talk Dr. Amen gave in 2011
Continue reading → Videos of me – early January 2011
I’ve only had my voice for short time then, and really didn’t quite know if I had a voice without Poorman or David’s facilitation. From a practical point of view, I didn’t and had not had a voice for 16 1/2 years, and even my dad thought I was mentally … Continue reading →
A Response to Dad and Note to Parents – emotional challenges of finding your voice
Looking through his 2011 emails to my old school, Dad found an email I’d like to address. Dad wrote: “On 2-22 he talked about the seizures he has been having. That day, he also conceived that he might have a voice independent of the facilitator’s. Until then, he thought that … Continue reading →
Videos of me typing A Voice for All essay, 3-5-2011.
This was my 3rd essay. I was more autistic then than I am now. Everyone says I communicate better now than when I was just coming out of my isolation. Follow the keystrokes and see me create parts of the essay from scratch. Watch me work right through a seizure. We will … Continue reading →
Education
This topic is going to get a lot of my attention. I have seen wonderful and horrible approaches to the education of people with autism. There’s a great book of stories that would be funny if they didn’t hurt so much. More on that later. In the meantime, I honor … Continue reading →
Update of last 6 months, Feb. 11, 2012
The most powerful and important thing I did since we were last together was the Landmark Forum. I learned powerful distinctions about the difference between what happens to me and how I interpret it. I saw that I often was holding back from daily work because I really was not … Continue reading →
Of Mice and Men, a book reflection
Of Mice and Men – a Report by John Smyth Of Mice and Men was written by John Steinbeck in the 1930s about the sad conditions of the poor migrant farm workers who ate and slept at apartments made for them on farms. This was called a “bunkhouse” in the book. … Continue reading →
O Ye of Little Faith
“Oh Ye Of Little Faith” The Bible tells us to trust in the Lord, and while I really wanted to, I had totally given up on almost all of my dreams of being a normal kid. You see I have been in the silent world of autism, and was often … Continue reading →
The Joy of Friendship
Friends are those who accept you for who you are and not what you are. I am privileged to have some great friends who don’t seem to notice or care that I’m autistic and do odd things. They treat me like I am just a normal kid. I would like … Continue reading →
A Place for John Behind the Frosted Window
I used to not know a place to fit in, and didn’t think I would ever find it. I spent much of my time wandering around just trying to find my place in this crazy world that I just couldn’t seem to fit into. My world made sense to me, … Continue reading →
A Voice for All
You know what its like to speak at will? Do you know what its like to share your thoughts with those you love? Well not all people have the ability to do that. People with autism seldom get a chance to communicate these feelings or emotions. I know because until … Continue reading →
Autism
Autism : By John Smyth I would like to share with you a world that is not at all familiar to you. My name is John Smyth and I am a young man with autism. I was not born this way, but for some reason the connections in my brain … Continue reading →
Story about a problem – my first essay
My problem was that I didnt know how to communicate with the outside world. I wanted to, but just couldnt seem to figure out how. I needed the help of the outside world and to find someone who believed in me. I knew my parents did and were trying to … Continue reading →
the right way
from May 15, 2011 the right way by John Smyth This is a story of a teenage boy who had dreamed a high aspiration of fitting into an unknown world. Its a sad story of lost opportunity and trust. Shattered heart and broken promises followed him day and night. It’s … Continue reading →