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Autisten und interessierte Zeitgenossen

Tahni Cullen is the co-author with Cheryl Ricker of Josiah’s Fire: Autism Stole His Words, God Gave Him a Voice, and with her husband, produced the award-winning documentary “Surprised By Autism.”

When Josiah’s fifth birthday came and left and he still hadn’t regained his speech, we had to face the painful reality that our only son would be in the 40 percent of people with autism who remained non-verbal. Despite all of our best efforts, he still had landed firmly on the “severe” end of the autism spectrum.

That September night, however, a divine gift landed in our dining room. For the last several months I had been doing lessons with Josiah using a method that taught kids to spell as they pointed at letters. I’d been making slow incremental progress—until that moment.

While reading to him from the children’s Bible about how Jesus healed the blind man, I waited for him to spell the word “heal” on big alphabetical buttons of his iPad. Instead he typed something different, and my mouth dropped open. “God is a good gift giver.”

His first independent sentence! Where had it even come from? Until this point, he had only communicated through pictures and simple one-word spellings. As the days moved on, “God is a good gift giver” became our life statement, and God began proving its truth to our family.

One letter at a time, words poured off Josiah’s pointer finger and onto his iPad. He began to write beautiful quotes and poetry that captured my heart, drawing me closer to God. I watched Josiah become more confident and less frustrated. Joy and hope sprang up from dry wells. Dreams re-emerged. With everything I daily witnessed, faith became more fun, charging me with expectancy.