By Ron Sandison I felt a sense of nostalgia watching the video of Joey Hicks, a thirty-year-old, nonspeaking adult with autism, soothing to the music of the Grateful Dead at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington. In the TikTok video that went viral, Joey is rocking-back-and-forth absorbed in the mus…

By Nils Skudra This week I had the opportunity to watch Jerry Rothwell’s documentary The Reason I Jump, a profoundly compelling commentary on the lives of several young nonspeaking adults on the autism spectrum. Based on the book of the same title by Naoki Higashida, this documentary explores the u…

“I am a 10 year old boy trapped in a body that does not follow my instructions.  I am a boy with the same dreams and aspirations as any other boy.  I am not defective or flawed, I am ever evolving.  I am not an ordinary boy, I am autistic and apraxic and I am a fellow human…I am not a pr…