How Can I Talk If My Lips Don’t Move?

 

                                                                                                      Thank you to my dear friend, Gloria, who gave me this book a while back. It is incredible!!  It really impacted my life.  It’s written by Tito Mukhopadhyay, a boy from India who was diagnosed with severe autism as a young child.   The schools in India could do nothing for him,  so his mother,  Soma, had to teach him at home.   They are both such an inspiration to me!   Soma was so creative in teaching Tito, using  his interests to reach him.     Tito writes in his book that his mother “followed me around with her voice and with her belief, like a faithful follower following some faith”.   This whole idea of belief is something I’ve heard by a few different people with autism.  They want their teachers, family, ect. to believe in them…. to not give up. 

Tito is probably about twenty years old now and is the author of three books, including The Mind Tree.  I’m so grateful to him and his mother that he was able to find his voice in the form of writing.  This book is a vivid journey through his life with autism and he is able to describe his world from the early age of three to present in short,  profound and beautifully written chapters.  I wish I could give him a big hug and tell him how much his book inspired and enlightened me.  After all, his mother is the one who invented the method that Emma uses to communicate.  The dedication to his book states: “To you who think my words matter”.   I do, Tito!  I really, really do.

I asked Emma what she wanted me to write on the blog today.   I held up the letterboard and she spelled “one of Tito’s poems”.   I read her alot of this book and even before she was communicating, I read much of it out loud to Jared.  I asked her if she liked the book and she typed “yes”.  “What do you like about it? “, I asked. 

Emma: I like that he was like me

 So, here’s one for Emma: