Sarah is a courageous, wise, compassionate truth-teller within this tumultuous, emotionally-fraught space of profound/severe/non-speaking autism.
She models for all of us the sanity-saving, soul-soothing perspective that our kids of any age have their own divine gifts, quirks, preferences, desires, yearnings, and dreams for their lives, despite being highly impacted by the apraxia of severe autism.
Severe or high-support-need autism is a neurological condition affecting how the brain and body signal, coordinate, and regulate together, NOT automatically involving cognition. While a subgroup of this population may have some degree of intellectual impairment, the majority does not--and in fact are likely to have higher intelligence, not to mention wisdom and empathy, than the rest of us "neurotypicals."
"Don't judge a book by its cover." Did you know that Helen Keller wrote about having had meltdowns before she could communicate about the brilliant mind locked within her body? Imagine the frustration, and how that frustrated behavior fed into the assumptions of incompetence.
Let's focus on what our kids CAN do, their enormous talents, strengths, and human potential. Let's presume competence and witness what blossoms when we do.
Sarah celebrates her own amazing children and guides other moms and stakeholders on this zigzag journey to do the same!
