I'm not saying she's a 'hoax' or not. I'm going to say she's misrepresenting herself as being a 'low functioning autistic'. I think it is a disservice to autistics to have her as some kind of poster child for autistics. I will tell you why. I know people who went to Simon's Rock with her when she was a teenager. She was a functioning, talking gifted student. Somehow along the way, now at 26 she is what she is now.
I have never met an autistic who became one in their late teens. She used to speak, so for her to communicate with a device is not so surprising. Sure, she has some kind of problem, but since this is so atypical for the nonverbal autistic types I think it's inappropriate for her to be trotted out in such a fashion with the press doing no research into her background. The people I know with non-verbal autistic children certainly didn't have them attending Simon's Rock at 14. I'm just saying this is unfair to my friends and now people think their non-verbal kids should get computers and just type at 120 wpm.
