The following was written by my wife as she shared what our 11 year old son wrote about autism:

My son David told me the other day that he was reading a book about a kid named David who was autistic. Then he asked me, “Am I autistic?” I paused for a bit, because I had never, for my own deeply considered reasons, told him he indeed was. He said, “Tell me the truth.” So I did, “Yes, you are.” He and I have had many conversations about this since then. They have revealed the amazing goodness and grandness of my child’s heart. As a result, he wrote the following in his writing class:

“Hi! My name is David and I have autism. I think I should have known this before. When I was in pre-K, I went to a baby class in church. I was singing a song in my head, but I got a little frustrated. My youth teacher noticed this. But that wasn’t what I am mad about. I’m mad about the thing that happened next. They made me sit in a chair until I told them what was wrong. IT DIDN’T MATTER! To this day, I wish that I could travel in time to pick myself out of that stupid chair and be free. But no, the youth teacher didn’t LISTEN! When you have autism, everyone thinks that you have mind issues. But really, your not much different from others. I’m in GTE [Gifted Talented Education], but people are sharing rumors on how I got there. They say stupid stuff like I’m in gifted because my mom wants me to. But that isn’t true. I remembered taking the test that I should be placed in gifted. It was my third grade teacher.

Some people look at autism as a bad thing. It’s not. People with autism can do a lot!

#2 Hi! David again. This is about autism. Everybody thinks your like an alien, but that’s not true. You can be like everyone else. But don’t. Be you. You’re a little boring if your someone else. Be you. Be the person who leads and other people follow. Be you. Even though you have autism, your capable of many things. Be you.”