Autism Speaks

Levi © 2023 Craig Dahlberg

There’s a catchy autism awareness bumper sticker I see around town; maybe you’ve seen it, too. It says, “Autism Speaks.”

It’s a catchy phrase because I’ve experienced that frustrating non-verbal characteristic of autism. I’ve never had a conversation with my 10-year-old grandson who has autism. The non-conversation is not because we’re never in the same room, and it’s not because we don’t love each other. It’s because of autism. As a youngster, Levi enjoyed the monosyllabic language any typical two-year old utters. In the garden, his hair scrambled and sticking out as if electrified, he would point and proudly call out, “Bird! Bird!” just like his father had at that age, many years before. Stumbling forward, eyes wide, he would seek out another bird to practice his language on. Other words emerged, appearing just as his small-person personality was beginning to bud and to bloom.

But then, gradually, like a weighted blanket drawn over part of his brain, his communication gradually quieted, then nestled into numbness. Slowly as the tide retreats, the silence gathered, and eventually, without fanfare, Levi just stopped speaking. Mysteriously, something in his brain stopped the typical synchronization with the fresh-blossoming world around him, and the silence moved in.

Autism is a strange thief, picking and choosing different skills to manipulate in different brains. The boy who lives with his mother two doors down the street suffers from a kind of autism with no “Off” switch. Their house is a museum display of a mind that cannot turn off, autistic developmental history scrawled onto ruined walls with crayons and magic markers. His is a brain possessing a limitless mania to disassemble pieces of electronics that were previously functional, and an unending requirement to express language like an open faucet with a broken valve. Or, more accurately, controlling his need to communicate is like trying to turn back Niagara Falls.

Contrast him again with our Levi, absent of the ability to generate any conversation at all. When energetically prompted, yes, he can repeat words, but they hold little meaning for him. They are learned behaviors, empty containers to comply with one-word instructions of those around him. Birds on the wing no longer speak to his soul.

Yet Levi is happy. He expresses gratefulness through body language. He has learned to hug! He rolls upon our bed, over and over, enjoying the exquisite softness of the bed covers. When he takes a shower, there is no stream too strong or too long to satisfy his love for water. And he laughs, oh, can he laugh, great belly laughs that contaminate a room with joy.

Is his autism at times discouraging? Yes. Hopeless? No.

Many years ago, when Team Jesus rolled into town, it was like nothing else anyone had ever witnessed.* A team of modern-day medical experts could not have done better. It was not really a three-ring healing circus. It was a One-Man show, with Jesus in the center ring, the other rings empty save for those needing his healing service. As the gospel song testifies, “Jesus on the mainline (—in this case, the center ring—) tell him what you want.”

The lame? Zap! Done. Walking again.

The blind? Biff! No problem. Vision restored.

Crippled folks? Boom! All those in attendance leave this meeting under their own power.

Those who couldn’t speak? Hurrah! Words given, conversation gained.

Wait a minute…”those who couldn’t speak”? That’s autism! Jesus recovered speech for the autistic? But back in the day, there was no such disease diagnosed as “autism.” Yet it happened.

No one knows exactly how autism works, where it comes from, or what triggers it. But I understand autism just a bit because I confess that I, too, have “it,” autism, that is.

I have the kind of autism that robs that part of my brain of certain kinds of speech. It’s the autism-like cloaked part of my brain that takes kindness for granted and does not show enough gratitude to the grocery clerk or the waiter or the neighbor. It’s the part of my brain that does not say, “I love you,” to those dearest to me. It’s the part of my brain that does not thank for my health, for my bank account, for this day, for the sun. And yes, it’s the part of my brain and my soul that expresses little gratitude for the song and the flight of the bird, bird, bird.

Indeed, autism is a spectrum, with great variation of effect. And a great variation of lessons to be learned.

So there’s hope for us all, wherever on the spectrum because, well, we have got to believe, we cannot forget—we must say it aloud—that all things are yet possible.

For surely, Autism Can Speak and Does Speak to us all.

*Matthew 15:29–39