<p>I find this story heart warming and hopeful on so many levels and wanted to share it with other parents. It never fails to amaze me the paths people’s lives can take. I wish this boy much success.</p>
<p>[My</a> nonspeaking autistic son will be Oberlin’s first ? The Good Men Project Magazine](<a href=“http://goodmenproject.com/families/nonspeaking-autistic-oberlin/]My”>http://goodmenproject.com/families/nonspeaking-autistic-oberlin/)</p>
<p>According to the article, the student is not non-verbal, which would mean he doesn’t use words. Rather, like a deaf student who signs, he is non-speaking. </p>
<p>Best of luck to him.</p>
<p>[Video</a> - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com](<a href=“Video News - CNN”>Video News - CNN)
^here is the video of DJ at the age of 15</p>
<p>This is wonderful. Congratulations to DJ and congratulations to Oberlin, which century after century keeps breaking down social barriers.</p>
<p>Nice to hear a positive admissions story. I hope he has a good experience at Oberlin.</p>
<p>He sounds like a very interesting person and a good addition to the Oberlin student body. This seems to be a good match between a student and a college.</p>
<p>I wish this boy much success. I certainly hope that whoever is his roommate, however, gets some training / counseling / information on how to interact with him. I can picture that being very stressful for both this young man and his eventual roommate without such guidance from adults who have experience in this area.</p>
<p>If you look at the CNN video, you’ll see that the boy engages in what’s called facilitated communication–he has to have a person holding his hand as he picks out letters on a keyboard (as you can imagine, there is a huge controversy about whether the communication is actually the output of the disabled individual, or the conscious or unconscious output of the facilitator–personally, I’m very skeptical). I would imagine that he will require a full-time aide in order to communicate, and will have some sort of special living arrangement.</p>
<p>Perhaps Oberlin’s experience will give us a clear Yes/No answer as to whether facilitated communication is hokum.</p>
<p>There will always be skeptics…</p>
<p>Hopefully he will some day develop independent typing skills - which some autistic individuals have been able to develop after first using FC</p>
<p>He definitely seems like a very intelligent boy despite his handicap. If he has the brains to succeed at Oberlin, best of luck to him.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting about this. It is fascinating. I found an interesting statement by the boy’s dad about facilitated communication.</p>
<p>[About</a> Facilitated Communication | Ralph James Savarese](<a href=“http://www.ralphsavarese.com/reasonable-people/about-fc/]About”>About Facilitated Communication | Ralph James Savarese)</p>
<p>Some facilitated communication has been revealed as an illusion. Virtually every scientific test done on facilitated communication has shown that the thoughts expressed are those of the facilitator, not the “communicator,” though the facilitators believe they are actually helping the communicator communicate. </p>
<p>This young man may be the exception, though I’m skeptical that a young man with (as far as I know) normal motor skills can’t type for himself.</p>
<p>The father appears to be a prof at Grinnell, fwiw.</p>
<p>A lot of educated people believe in facilitated communication. Then again, a lot of educated people believed that Terry Schaivo was actually watching and reacting, and her autopsy revealed that her visual cortex, and most of the rest of her brain, had turned to water. We have a powerful urge to make sense out of people’s actions, even when the actions are not purposeful.</p>
<p>I’m certainly no expert on autism, but I doubt that an autistic boy who is non-speaking has “normal motor skills.” </p>
<p>From what I know, autistic people have motor performance issues that are different from those of neurotypical people.</p>
<p>I know a smart young person with Aspergers who cannot write in cursive script. It has something to do with many of the letters being formed differently according to how they are connected to other letters. </p>
<p>In fact, the young person in question does not write in upper and lower case…only in upper case (block capitals). I would suspect that if for some reason it were a life or death matter, this individual’s writing could be “improved.” As it is, it is sufficient. There have been other challenges that were more important to overcome. Other priorities, and the overall stress levels of the person to consider.</p>
<p>I am wondering if there could be a parallel between this and the boy accepted at Oberlin and his current inability to type. From the video, he presents as being pretty severely affected by autism.</p>
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<p>Generally-educated lay people may have believed that, but educated neurologists didn’t believe that, and knew that Ms. Schiavo’s condition was indeed what it was, with no hope of restoration. Indeed, it so happens that the one neurologist who tried to testify otherwise had been a graduate of Northwestern’s med school, and I know for sure that Northwestern’s med school either was considering or actually put out a statement to the effect of repudiating him for not practicing the good medicine that he’d been taught. (Sorry, this whole case is a pet peeve of mine - I grew up in the same town as she did and followed the story closely. You may all carry on now.)</p>
<p>As someone who does not have any loved ones affected by autism, can someone provide me a lay explanation of what goes on in this young man’s brain, and why (despite apparently being quite bright) he is unable to communicate? If I’m asking to boil the ocean, then tell me that too. I just don’t know much about this. I have read some of Amanda Baggs’ blog and find it fascinating, but this is not a topic I have any knowledge about.</p>
<p>When I listened to DJ’s prompt, fresh, original replies, face-to-face with Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the CNN interview, among my first thoughts was, “Sounds like an Obie.” (Oberlin kid). Specifically: “Treated with respect” and “defining ourselves” had the ring of sharp metacognitive abilities, higher order thinking, creativity and heart that Oberlin seeks and fosters. </p>
<p>I put a lot of faith in the Oberlin Admissions office and in the consultative powers of their faculty for advice. In recent years, for exampe, Oberlin’s Psychology department ran a “Practicum in Autism” seminar to oversee LAC undergrads working 1:1 in the region’s public school that serves children with autism. Oberlin is a bright school, and too socially responsible to take on a student without having also considered the social challenges, such as dorming and roommate stressors. It won’t be easy but, as the Chinese say, “all beginnings are hard.” </p>
<p>As a discussion for its own sake, as PizzaGirl suggests in the post above, I’m also curious to hear someone go into the topic scientifically, as neurology. As for DJ, I’m just sharing my own first reaction was simply that it sounds like a good “fit” between student and college.</p>
<p>I know only this much: that in the autism field, it’s considered a Developmental Delay requiring special education. In other words, autism is in a category where skills can be developed with excellent education, but come in at a later date than expected. There are higher and lower functioning categories of children with autism. I wonder if the social and other communication skills also are developable, but come in at delayed/later times in a young person’s life. </p>
<p>I’m thinking: If he’s got a very bright brain, as “straight-A highschool student” suggests, but locked up inside his persona due to inability to read various social and interpersonal cues, all of that might be taught, but over time. And what a set of parents to bring him this far, so far.</p>
<p>Again, I’m no expert, but if anyone knows the neurology to answer Pizzagirl’s question in the above post, that’d be great.</p>
<p>So many comments I am tempted to make that will get me severely criticized. It is wonderful for this severely handicapped individual to have had so many resources available to him. However, society doesn’t have the resources to give every deserving child equivalent resources to be able to function. At least the student for whom this place at Oberlin went to has a diifferent college at which to learn. I can’t help feeling badly for the many others who can’t get half of what this person did- so many resources spent that others could use with better results. This is not my child so I can’t help thinking about others who deserve what he got over the past years more than he did. All a matter of perspective.</p>
<p>Re your comment on developmental delay and learning things eventually, Paying3tuitions, Temple Grandin has some very interesting things to say about how her brain works and how the way she learns things seems to be different from that of other people.</p>
<p>All autistic people are different from one another, making it hard to generalize sometimes, but I would imagine that Grandin is in no way unique.</p>