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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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. …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
Authentic John
My Story I missed most of my educational opportunity being placed in “Life-skills” with some others like me and some who are more truly unable to answer the questions. We “learned” the ABCs, how to tell time, and how to …Continue reading →
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, …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
An article I wrote for my school paper- Having so many special needs teachers in our school speaks to the incidence of life-altering events in our little corner of the world. “Special” sometimes means, “Certified as Unable” and other times …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
I’m starting to look at colleges. Here are my first questions for them: 1. What can we do that would be worthwhile? 2. What studies do you have for teaching future teachers about autism? 3. What real education about entrepreneurship …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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, …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
Each love of our assumptions is incredibly enabling, in things our senses experience and don’t experience. Our opinions of strangers is a powerful example. When an opinion forms almost spontaneously as to dress, education, physicalness or voice, yesterday’s conclusions speak …Continue reading →
It will be learned in the future that people with autism last patiently in their bodies with complete mental competence. Waiting for this to be confirmed before looking for your child is sadly missing the years of his life while …Continue reading →
Request for prayers for me to show the way to independence for others. I am trying to document the internal struggle for others to follow. It is hard. I am fighting my long secret assumptions and fears. Me arriving at neurologist Dr. McGuire’s: I’ve …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →
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 …Continue reading →