I found this video absolutely… astonishing? Astounding? Interesting?

In My Language

Are people with autism trapped in their own world? Or are the rest of us just trapped in ours?

This video starts with weird collection of sounds and actions: humming, running fingers on the keyboard, tapping, waving hands, burring face in the book…

This is a video made by a 27 year old Amanda Baggs who is autistic. Non-speaking. Yet… her perception of the world, her ways of interacting with it seem revolting at first, stirring as she continues and… I guess shocking in many ways, once she defines her actions as language, once she starts typing her “translation” on the screen. Despite not being able to speak, Amanda is able to type 120 words per minute. With the help of computerized voice (a text reading software) she shares what goes on in her head.

My language is not about designing words or even visual symbols for people to interpret. It is about being in a constant conversation with every aspect of my environment, reacting physically to all parts of my surroundings.

Far from being purposeless, the way that I move is an ongoing response to what is around me….The way I naturally think and respond to things looks and feels so different from standard concepts or even visualization that some people do not consider it thought at all. But it is a way of thinking in its own right.

After watching this video, it’s easy to start wondering whose perception of the world is actually more disabled – ours, that is considered normal, or this one?

Read more in the New York Times: The Language of Autism