Lina Pak

YISS

11th grade

Reversing the handicap bias

People today are endowed with different abilities that allow them to become contributors of the world. Regardless, the cold truth is that there remains to be a couple who continue to ostracize those with disabilities. They act in bias towards the handicapped, often perceiving them as “less intelligent, helpless, or fearful.”

Carly Fleischmann, currently 11, is a living proof that serves them wrong.

Carly Fleischmann was diagnosed with severe autism, cognitive delay, and oral motor apraxia at age 2. “When you’re told your child is going to be developed mentally delayed, that they might achieve the development level of a 6 year old, it’s something kicked in the gut,” her Father stated during an interview with ABC news. Since 3 years old, Carly had gone through extensive therapy that lasted about 40-60 hours a week with 3-4 therapists. Despite the slow progress, it was finally when she was 11 that Carly experienced a major breakthrough.

She learned to speak through the computer.

All of a sudden these words started to pour out of her, and it was an exciting moment because we didn’t realize she had all these words,” Barbara Nash, a speech pathologist, stated. ?

One of the first words Carly typed was “HURT” and “HELP,” two words no one had ever explicitly taught her. Carly also wrote deep down feelings about how it felt to be autistic as her therapists and family continued to encourage her to type the words herself.

“Autism is hard because you want to act one way, but you can‘t always do that. It’s sad that sometimes people don‘t know that sometimes I can’t stop myself and they get mad at me. If I could tell people one thing about autism it would be that I don‘t want to be this way. But I am, so don’t be mad. Be understanding.“

Carly also explained the reasons why she threw tantrums or behaved in ways people could not understand by typing that she “ [felt] like her body [was] going to explode if she [didn’t],” and that it was not tantamount to “turning a switch off.”

Carly stands as an advocate of autism and teaches people around the world about the disorder, in means such as her own website carlysvoice.com. Although only a handful of people had faith in her capabilities, Carly Fleischmann demonstrated globally that she was someone who was able to think, hear, and feel- someone who shouldn’t be looked down upon.

<Lina Pak, YISS 11th Grade>