04/23/2025
This is a beautiful story coming from a beautiful book written by a beautiful mother and exactly the kind of positivity I needed in my life this morning.
The book would be a great gift to any household, library or school. 🩵
I remember visiting a school while on my first book tour and I didn’t know what to expect.
I take my family on these events because my kids require care that only myself or their father can provide.
We were worried that the students wouldn’t understand our boys, especially Aidan. Their time in school wasn’t pleasant.
Aidan was the only student in most of his schools that was like him. He was often alone. Isolated. And when he was brought into activities and classes with the other students, they didn’t know how to engage with him. Many were scared of him. Many were mean. And most just didn’t understand him.
The majority of them had not experienced someone with a disability.
He was their introduction.
When I pulled them from school, I knew that I wanted to create a space, resources, and products that would serve as invitation to an experience that many weren’t familiar with.
That is when I knew that I would place my advocacy on top of stories.
My boys have spent their lives being numbers. Statistics. I wanted to focus on who they were as people. And I wanted the world to know them whole.
We visited that school and everyone knew who my kids were. But they especially knew Aidan.
They called him by name.
They waved at him.
They smiled at him.
…and each class that filed into the auditorium had one or more students holding up an iPad to show us their communication apps.
These weren’t special education classrooms.
They were general education.
The school had purchased A Day with No Words for each of their classrooms and every class had one or more iPads so that not only could their disabled students use them when they needed them but also so that the general education students could as well. They were doing what I wanted them to do all along: find pieces of their life in which they felt that they could also use some assistance and connect that experience with my son’s.
We all get overwhelmed. We all have moments where words escape us. We all have those times when anxiety takes over.
And we also communicate without spoken words all the time. Through letters. Through gestures. Through text. Through pictures. Through reading.
They communicate like my son does, they aren’t unfamiliar with how he communicates. So, think of him in that way.
And this school did.
They used my book to normalize communication outside of speech. And they did it often and consistently.
By the time we visited their school, they knew. They were accepting. Accommodating. Caring.
They moved beyond my book to learn more about autism. To learn more about Nonspeakers.
And every question they had was about my Aidan. They talked about how they have a few Nonspeakers in school. How they made friends with them. And how they promised to be better people to them.
They said they also loved chicken nuggets and fries. Orange soda was also their favorite. They asked about the trees. They loved to spin in grass barefoot too. They wondered if the app they had was the same as Aidan’s. They wanted to know his hobbies. Did he get along with his brother?
This book is so special to me.
And it did more than I ever imagined it to do.
I am so proud that it will be back in print. I want every one to have a copy of the book that changed my life. That’s changing my son’s life.
It’s on preorder. And for premium and rewards members, Barnes and Noble is having a sale for 25% off PREORDERS RIGHT NOW! Check comments
