School Is Where My Friends Are

“Having this school is healing. I know my quiet prayers were answered. It lets us be us. I love having friends. I love not getting made fun of. I love making life happy. Healing is love and happiness. Having healing in our hearts is so wonderful. I get so happy seeing my friends. We need each other. We bring healing and peace to each other. I know having autism is hard. Having life with no voice is hard. I really need school to help me have all my amazing prayers answered. My hope from the community is to support us in spelling. I live with no voice, but I live with my love for communicating. I long for the day I can spell with no help. I live with hope the community supports us. I know my life is living with autism. I know the community can do more to help by giving prayers. I long for more help in my life with spelling. How can you help us reach our goals? I might pray for miracles.”

-Kayden, ALL Student

It is assumed that non-speaking individuals don’t want friends. How can a non-speaking person be a friend to someone? How can a friendship even grow if the autistic children can’t speak to one another? There is a special spirit that connects non-speaking autistics. It is a connection and friendship that they long for, they grieve for when they don’t have that connection, a loneliness that is innate and insatiable when they are alone and isolated. When the autistic children and youth started to spell to their teachers and the other students, it was surprising to discover and learn how much each child felt a need to be a friend and to have a friend. They need companionship as much as anyone else. We just assume they don’t, because, until we are given the chance to find out what a child is feeling through spelling communication, we just simply don’t understand.

One of the students has named the school “The Healing Place.” What does that mean? It means that there is suffering and sadness that is rarely understood. It means that being able to have friends, learn from dedicated teachers in a classroom setting, and not feel isolated or restricted from a normal school setting has been a great healing experience for the students. The logo for the Autism Learning Center is an open hand with a puzzle piece in the center of the palm. The open hand represents feeling welcome, accepted, respected, lifted, steadied, encouraged, supported, appreciated, reassured, comforted, and loved. The puzzle piece in the center of the hand represents autism - the puzzling and sometimes disconnected, isolated world of autism. The hand and the puzzle piece represent the mind and body that struggle to work together in an autistic. The hand that spells connects the autistic with the world around them. It opens the door and invites compassion through knowledge, acceptance and respect through experience, and the understanding of the God-given right to communicate with others. This school for these autistic children and youth is truly a Healing Place.