Powerful insight. Thank you. I need to show this to my (NT) sister, we had a heated disagreement recently about nonverbal autists and the proper way to approach the situation.

No, she's a social worker. I was telling her that we should simply accept nonverbal ND folks and meet them at their pace, and accomodate for and promote AAC, instead of trying to "help them" (i.e. harrass) to talk verbally. This was related to the greater idea that it is society that disables people, and it's not an inherent characteristic of their being.

She deals with children that sometimes stop speaking because of severe abuse or trauma so I think I understand where her position came from... however, I told her that when mute people are cut off from the rest, it's because *we* are not taught/learn sign language. Similar to the situation of forcing deaf people to read lips and modulate speech without hearing themselves... I think she understood when I presented those examples.

Oh... This is very interesting! I never heard people being referred to as other that verbal/nonverbal and never thought of its implications! It's always nice to keep learning, and be able to adjust my terminology and conceptualizations for ever-greater destigmatizing and just and accurate representation of people and their experiences. Thank you!

You should make a post with that article (if you haven't already).