As I may have heard the story in years past, but until a few weeks ago it was not brought to light in a way as I had the attention span to make it into this blog post as I am doing today. It is how I was able to communicate better with others and begin to learn my own language over 35 years ago before reaching my autism spectrum diagnosis. It is something that I knew to some extent, but never really understood the reason why I was there and what eventually came to be how I obtained the knowledge to speak as someone who would later be diagnosed as an autistic person.

Of course, growing up there was always something not right about me, after being born I was rather fussy and at the right milestones I said the small words, but nothing more. Then as the times progressed my mother and sometimes others would take me to Easter Seals where I would have Speech Therapy at the age of four. The hour sessions did not come easy at first as I would often cry. But one thing that the speech-language pathologist would do was give my family a set of flash cards to practice speaking words, which eventually I would retain.

Each week after each session, our family would stop at my maternal grandparents’ home where at the dining room table that seemed to last most of my time with them my mother would display the flash cards in front of me. It was there that I said my first word “bug dozer” (bulldozer.) Of course, there would be many years of speech therapy, clear through my public education career I might add with some great and not so great speech-language pathologists, in fact the one I  had the last three years of high school will be retiring this year. I am truly thankful to those that have helped me improve greatly over the years on all the skills that help me communicate in the way that I do today.

It can be hard to believe that there was a time that I did not speak. But that is the things that you don’t remember things like that. I do remember my Kindergarten registration and the teacher I had in a school that no longer stands say  “speak Dustin speak” and eventually I did. Little did we know that those were the traits for my autism spectrum diagnosis that was later bestowed upon me nearly a decade later. Now over two decades later it is something that I embrace and am proud of the man that I have become just by learning how to speak and communicate in the way that I do.

As anyone who reads this may be inspired by this story, remember that there is something possible in every one of you. You may never see it, but others do and know that things can change and grow if you take the time and work your way towards seeing the potential that you want to see within yourself or others.