Thursday, September 13, 2012

I Stand With Henry

On the tails of my last entry - how functioning labels are harmful, comes young nonverbal autistic, Henry. Henry wants to be treated like a human being. He wants people to stop talking in front of him - about him - like he's not there. He wants to go to his neighborhood school. Not in some self contained segregated classroom. He is smart and wants to be treated with dignity and respect. Henry is not an anomaly and we must stop thinking that he is. Many autistic people with communication differences are labeled with low IQ and lack of potential -  inappropriately so. We must STOP. NOW.



I stand with Henry because every student and every human should be afforded equal rights and respect no matter. Only when society stops sorting and valuing people based on labels will society truly be free.


[edit 9-14-2012] Stand with Henry on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/IStandWithHenry

4 comments:

Brenda Rothman (Mama Be Good) said...

Amen! Henry is awesome - and so are so many other non-verbal persons when *we* take the time to get to know them.

Amy Caraballo said...

Thank you Brenda! Agreed. Can we get some love on this boys blog?
http://ollibean.com/2012/08/23/my-civil-rights/

Ollibean said...

You guys are absolutely incredible. Really, thank you so much!

Ollibean said...

You guys are absolutely incredible!!Thank you so Much!