MOUTH TO HAND LEARNING CENTER

DYSPRAXIA STINKS

BY JASON LEVINE

My name is Jason Levine, and the thing is, I want the world to meet the real me. Before I could spell, no one that worked with me could see my potential. Having dyspraxia stinks…but at least it stinks a little less now. Greatness is being beyond the loss of ability, and finding the ability to have success. Being dyspraxic means loss of motor control, not cognitive control.

Love has given me a voice. Getting a voice has given me the ability to make real thoughts known.

9/16/2025 1 Comment

Who We Are

All of us are feeling pretty upbeat lately. We love it when a guest comes to see us. Guests are being wowed by our abilities, not our disabilities, and that feels awesome. Basically, we want to show the world who we really are. When they leave here with their minds officially blown we feel great.

So all of you, bring more outsiders here. We love it! We get a chance to show off…and that’s all kinds of awesome. Best feeling ever. And we are usually smiling for days after. That is our favorite thing: to be seen for who we are.

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4/29/2025 1 Comment

Open Letter to Secretary Kennedy

Dear Secretary Kennedy:

My name is Jason Levine and there are so many things I want to say. We nonspeakers are not really autistic in that we have symptoms that are completely different from the other kind of autism. The word autism comes from the word “auto” meaning self. The other kind of autism is defined by their lack of social awareness. We cannot be more different.

We are hypersocial, to the point that I believe that we need a new diagnosis. I have jokingly called our disability “empathism.” I feel that it covers the main difference between us and them. At the moment we use dyspraxia, since it at least covers our profound motor deficits. Having a new diagnosis will separate us from the slightly odd guys who go to work and live independently. We may appear horribly disabled on the outside, but inside we think like neurotypicals.

We need help desperately. We have almost zero control over our own bodies. We cannot talk without a trained communication partner holding our keyboards or letterboards. And yet we are extraordinarily intelligent.

All of us want a cure more than words can say. Than you for being so outspoken.

Sincerely,
Jason Levine

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4/22/2025 5 Comments

More Reflections on Alex's Bar Mitzvah

Being still on a high from being at Alex’s bar mitzvah, definitely let me be beyond happy at the gala. The event was great and beautiful. It was, for me, a turning point in that I now know that God exists. Being there stands certainly as the moment everything changed. For my whole life I wasn’t sure God was real, and if he was, why did he stick me in this stupid body? But that day I felt the deepest, most profound love surrounding me. It had nothing to do with people’s love or faiths. It was way more than that.

Having to let myself consider that God is real is actually hard for me. Being doubtful has been my norm. I am being honest when I say that I am a skeptic about most things. Getting down to it, God’s existence was the least likely of all.

But several things have happened which I’ve witnessed that have led me to change my mind. That day at the synagogue is transformative. Being there defies anything I’ve experienced in my life. Certainly there was something that called to people that day.

For the entire service, which was over two hours, there was virtual silence. Fifteen or so nonspeakers had zero OCD or anxiety at all. All report feeling pure happiness and love. All report feeling their minds and bodies relax in a way they’ve never felt before. And all, including me, report feeling a presence that defies description. Wishful thinking doesn’t explain the facts.

Having that feeling once was enough to convince even a skeptic like me. Calling that day the most beautiful of my life is a drastic understatement. For all of us, it changed everything. That point bears the utterly certain feeling that God exists.

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4/8/2025 2 Comments

The Bar Mitzvah

Alex is certainly a movie star around here with good reason. His bar mitzvah was really one of the most wonderful events ever. Being there totally beyond made us believe in God more than ever. Certainly all of us present had religious experiences that had nothing to do with faith. It felt like God was in that room, and welcomed all of us. My body and mind were clear beyond anything I’ve ever felt. It was the most beautiful feeling I’ve ever had. Love feels like that, but not on this scale.

I wish Alex had a bar mitzvah again so I could feel it again. Certainly being not religious particularly had nothing to do with it. Having been there that day was beyond a blessing, no matter what your faith is. Having that experience changed all of us. For the rest of our lives, we will know that God exists. It was the most profound experience of our lives.

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1/28/2025 4 Comments

Changing Minds

I believe we are having a very good, powerful response to our totally, better-than-awesome panel who rocked it at the ribbon-cutting ceremony last week. They did an incredible job. Having that panel, who were so calm about being seen in public, really convinced people that spelling is legitimate. Having people see spelling, as opposed to just reading about it, really makes a difference. The old adage “seeing is believing” is true. All the people who saw that panel were blown away.

That really showed me that we can convince people that we are not cognitively impaired. Getting that kind of exposure totally works. Maybe people who feel some skepticism that is the result of ASHA polluting their minds, can ultimately have their minds changed. That is wishful thinking perhaps, but I am going to remain positive. The belief that we can make a difference has to ultimately keep us in an optimistic frame of mind.

You gotta believe.

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1/21/2025 0 Comments

The Ribbon Cutting

It was one wild time at the Mouth to Hand Ribbon Cutting this past Saturday. I was thrilled by the turn-out. Everyone who came felt the electricity in the air. All those who had never seen spelling before walked out with a different perspective of nonspeakers. I felt like seeing the panel type out answers on a clear letterboard made the outsiders believers.

Maybe we can change how the world sees us. Maybe we have a chance to want more for ourselves. Maybe there is a new world on the horizon.

Appearances are deceiving. We are so much more than we may seem. Having the world learn to presume competence will change everything.

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12/17/2024 0 Comments

The Mind Place

Trying to explain what it’s like to be telepathic is awkward. There are no words that mean the right thing. How can I describe the meaning of what I’m allowing into my brain? I believe that certain things are totally beyond description. It is like trying to explain color to someone who is blind. Being what some people call telepathic is absolutely beyond having conversations in our heads. I believe it is first and foremost more like a shared consciousness.

With so many having shared these wonderful thoughts that have really gotten the word out, there can’t be too much more to say. I believe some may have described the way being there is kind of like being in a true collective mind. Determining who is who is easy though. Feelings like worry are experienced by us all, but love for a particular person is individual. Definitely I am used to having people worry with me.

Calling The Mind Place “The Mind Place” is now becoming more popular than The Hill. I kind of like it more because, the thing is, The Mind Place is more accurate. Calling The Mind Place “The Hill” takes it to a physical moment. I always have the sense that we are where we are, meaning I know I am in my room, for example.

Being there is in my mind, and that feels fantastic because I am not hampered by this dyspraxic body. I am finding it very comforting that I can go there whenever I want. Having The Mind Place means that we are never truly alone. I am loving that.

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11/5/2024 2 Comments

Great Teaching

Can you teach with feeling when you don’t care? That permeates the teaching profession. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently because caring is getting to be a rare quality. Basically, it seems to me that fewer and fewer people care about doing a great job. Everywhere you look there is laziness and sloppiness. There is a lack of motivation and a lack of shame about taking other people’s money as charity.

Having the desire to do great work takes a special kind of person. The total commitment to produce the best product takes an overwhelming amount of energy. Giving your all takes hard work, and hard work is totally unfashionable.

Teachers are no different. All they do feels like being surrounded by mediocrity. I utterly need to state that the opposite is true of Judy. In fact, she does too much and works too hard. I’m aware that people think that she makes knowledge too fun to be taken too seriously. But that is not the case at all. I learn every time I step through the doors of M2H, and that is the sign of great teaching.

Jason listening to a lecture by Professor David Chinitz of Loyola University on the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns

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10/29/2024 0 Comments

No Feeling Stands Alone

Having Alex degenerate these past few years caused Judy heartache that I cannot fathom. Yet one day after another, since I met her, she came into the office in good spirits. I am totally feeling the stress though, today. I guess feelings are complicated, and they are tied together in complex ways. Digging deeper, there are overlaps too, like anger and stress; happiness and love. Grief and love can also be tied together.

So with that in mind, that love makes things complicated because they can rapidly become powerfully intermixed. (I love that comment because it encapsulates this post’s idea perfectly.) I sense in Judy today a mixture of tension, fear, stress, anger, love, heartache and disappointment. That upset has me reeling.

To tell you the truth though, only one may certainly have me personally upset: heartache makes the whole thing tough to handle. The source of that has to leave her alone. I feel that it is personally an attack on her…and that pisses me off.

I know that my fellow nonspeakers intend to pursue this conversation this week. I feel though that the less said, the better. Feelings are weird though and maybe I’m wrong. Her thoughts get muddled to me though, so I’m not sure what is best.

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10/22/2024 0 Comments

Call for Change

After an awkward time, being frightened by the very thought of years trapped in this body, having to withstand the nightmare of school, I finally am, at first, getting to like who I am. I can’t feel totally at peace with myself, because dyspraxia sucks. Having no ability to speak with my mouth, or to take care of myself, stinks. Having to be reliant on others even to speak blows chunks. That is the worst part of this stupid disability. Calling the hardness of our lives difficult is beyond an understatement.

But at least now demonstrating that I’m intelligent allows people to realize that I am not who they believed me to be.

I thought I’d get used to people waiting to put us through tortuous, idiotic, almost-damaging, shaky science nonsense, but it’s not the kind of thing one gets used to. I take the position that we give the appearance of considerable disability, but if you observe us closely, through the lens of dyspraxia, you will see a consistency. Our ability to control the workings of our muscles is pathetic. Seeing as how our teachers, therapists, and beneficent speech paths all saw the motor problems, how come no one has made the leap to reconsider our cognitive abilities? Sorry, but it doesn’t allow centuries of work to have the truth thoroughly accepted. All it should take is a paper or two in the literature to crush today’s misconceptions.

Real-world returns are the corrections of societal mistakes. It’s awkward always to admit you are wrong. But it needs to happen right now.

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