Intelligence and communication:

• “As a child my parents were told that I was retarded. It was assumed that my habit of flushing things down the toilet was an autistic obsession but it was not. I was truly trying to find out how the plumbing worked and I couldn't ask. Oye, the money and time I could have saved my parents if I only had a voice. Without a voice most people assume retardation. Others talk about you, for you and around you but they rarely talk to you. Apparently my intelligence is in your mind, not my own.”

• “The first time I typed, everyone realized that I was not as stupid as they thought. . . . Without a facilitator I am plunged back into silence and invisibility.”

• Sandra Radisch, Sharing Our Wisdom