Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone Book

This is an excellent book. This fives depth and insight to people who can not communicate through speech. It is a series of stories all true, based on real people who have difficulty expressing themselves due to the inability to vocalize their thoughts, feelings, ideas, a communicate with the rest of the world. The stories here will help you understand that even though the person is unable to speak, they are intelligent, creative, human beings with feelings. ALL of these people have experienced the cruelty and ableist perception of what others "think they know about communication disability" Imagine being unable to speak and people around you talking about you like you can not hear either, calling you names, referring to you as stupid or even retarded, and not being able to defend yourself verbally or in writing. Now imagine yourself hearing this an knowing you are actually aware of these labels and are highly offended and your IQ is actually higher than theirs. Once the people in the book are given tools to communicate through assistive devices, their lives change forever and they are able to tell their stories and their experiences and teach others about what they have been through. This is a must read for anyone in Special Education or Autism Studies. It will transform your perception about "presumed competence" and the reality behind what is happening in the human brain of those who are unable to communicate with us "yet". This a is profound experience to read this brilliantly written, documentation of what Non-verbal is and the potential of what it can become.