Nonverbal Does Not Mean Unintelligent

People say that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But we do it all the time. This includes how we look at people with autism.

Two of our children with autism are considered nonverbal. If you met our son, you would probably consider him low functioning. He doesn't talk (much). He hums and moans and makes weird sounds. We have heard a number of times of people who should know better who think that he is unintelligent.

It just isn't true.

Our son is very intelligent. He taught himself a song on the piano without a lesson or even the encouragement to play. He can read, in fact when we play a CD, he pulls out the lyrics to read along. Put him in front of a computer and he can navigate the internet no problem.

There has been some research done in this area. You can find the article here. The main point is that we should not be making assumptions about people with autism or anyone else.

Image by pixaby

Autism and Eye Contact

It has been long known that children with autism have issues with eye contact. This was the case with Logan and Abby. People at our church used to try so hard to get them to look in their eyes. When my dad was dying in the hospital, a nurse tried to get them to look and Abby kicked her hard. They are much better now, at least with us.

Here is an article that includes some of the updated research on this topic.

Image from pixaby