Non-verbal adults with autism find their voices at Delaware County school
DELAWARE COUNY - A gentle tap on a board has opened the door to endless possibilities for non-verbal adults with autism.
Inside Voice, a school in Delaware County, is giving people with autism a chance to use their voices; and it all began with Brian Foti and his brother Tom. Brian has autism, which makes it difficult for him to speak.
He first learned how to communicate using "Spelling to Communicate," a method of pointing to letters to spell. However, Brian taught himself to spell through years of "tedious and time-consuming" observation.
Tom remembers the first time he saw Brian's true voice. He spelled out the answer to an open-ended question about Alcatraz.
"Mouth completely open, jaw on the floor," Tom said.
Touching each letter, Brian described the emotional moment he was finally able to speak with his brother.
"That was a moment that changed the course of my life," he said. "I finally got to have my true voice."
Emily Pinto, the co-director of Inside Voice, says she "felt like I met him for the very first time even though I knew him for so many years." She said she finally understood the struggle Brian had been dealing with for so long.
"His response was that he felt like he was breaking out of the prison of his own body, and that perfectly captured it," she said.
Five years later, Inside Voice opened its doors under the Non Profit AALIVE. The school teaches non-verbal adults with autism to communicate using a laminate board filled with letters. Now Brian's journey of speech is expanding as Tom and Emily help his friends find their voices.
"The resounding sentiment among so many of our spellers is that they say that can finally be a participant in life rather than a bystander," Tom said.
Inside Voice hopes to change the mindset when it comes to people with autism, and to help everyone communicate with hem.
"I think that we're going to empower a whole group of people that we've been previously underestimating in a very big way."