So many of our children with autism struggle with language. In fact, in order to be diagnosed with autism there must be some sort of communication issue. But this can run the gamut from no language at all, to the most verbal of verbals who speaks better than most professors do. The difficult part about the communication issue is not whether or not language is present—but how the child with autism uses language. As I’ve watched Ewan grow and develop and move from little language to predominantly echolalia to more sophisticated and complex language, I’ve always thought English was never his first language.

In fact, I’m not even sure words were a part of his first language.

He speaks a language that is far more elemental and fundamental to humanity—a wordless language born of the senses and the depths of the human mind unknown but to a few of us.

It’s hard to speak this language, because it’s not something you say—it’s something you feel, something you experience. It’s not a language of the hands as in sign. It’s not a language made of complex syntax and grammar. It’s not a language of sentences and fragments and adjectives. It’s a language of feeling. It’s a language of elation, of despair, of confusion, of love. It’s a language of the wind on your skin, the water under your fingertips, the sun in your hair, and of lights and shadows. It's a language of obsessions.

Yet, for those in my neck of the woods, English is the language of the natives. English is spoken here, is read here, and is heard here. So a bridge must be built. The bridge from the language of the autistic to the language of the neurotypical.

Often, I meet a child who has never been given the opportunity to cross this bridge. The language bridge was never offered.

Too often, I hear the words, ‘Not a good candidate’ when considering higher forms of augmentative communication systems for the child with autism. Too often, we get bogged down in those clinical and educational minefields that make us believe that some things are just beyond this child. Yet, if you never try it, you’ll never know for sure. There's no litmus test to say who should be offered that opportunity and who shouldn't. These children continue to defy expectations every single day.

I remember when Ewan was very young. The language bridge was slowly built plank by plank. Sign language gave us a few steps toward the middle. PECS gave us a few more. But it wasn’t until Ewan was given a high tech communication system that he finally met me in the middle. The Dynavox was just the bridge we needed to speak each other’s language. I made sure his language of obsessions and sensory perceptions were programmed into the device and he made the greatest of efforts to understand why words like ‘the’ and ‘he’ and ‘want’ and ‘no’ were so important to me. We met in the middle and we’ve been there ever since.

That system, that bridge, that device was what brought us together and has pushed Ewan into the language of words, sentences, fragments, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns. These concepts are still difficult for him and spontaneous language is something that he still struggles with. Obviously Ewan is very literal in his interpretation of the language. He still struggles with providing the context and background of a story—often leaving out really important information that helps me understand what he’s trying to tell me. Often I play detective and must draw the story out. He still struggles with the social use of language and the idea of the 'little white lie'. He still struggles with the idioms and the slang. He is baffled by the double entendre and listens with confusion as people say everything but what they really mean to say.

Learning to communicate with the natives has been hard for Ewan. It is a process that has taken years and will take many more before it becomes more intuitive for him. It is a process that has taken him from signs to PECS to devices to natural speech and he continues to push the boundaries of possibility.

I believe that for some children with autism—language is facilitated by sign, it is brought forth through PECS, it is made possible through a communication device—and for others we have yet to find that tool, that bridge that makes the leap from the autistic language to the neurotypical language. For some children, we have yet to crack the language code and the autistic Rosetta Stone has yet to be found. But it’s there, I know it is—and what it takes is ingenuity and creativity on our part to help find that tool.

If you have a child whose first language isn’t English I urge you to look for that tool. I urge you to try things that others have said aren’t possible. I urge you to put the words, “not a good candidate” completely out of your mind. I’ve seen children who everyone else had given up on surprise the world with a touch to a device. I’ve seen children who defy the expectations of those who believe “he’s not a good candidate” reach over and use a communication device to say, “I want juice” or “I love you” or spell “H-A-P-P-Y”. These small words and phrases may not seem like much, but in reality language is made up of small steps and what is a word and a phrase today can be conversation tomorrow.