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SPEAKING FOR MYSELF...

BY ALEX GORMAN

I am definitely the luckiest person on the face of the earth. Each day we nonspeakers can easily choose to feel sorry for ourselves. But nothing really easy is ever as good, I believe. To be happy is not an easy choice, but it's one I choose to make. Easy things are what some gravitate towards...but not me. The best things in my life, and the people I love most, have either been the hardest or worked the hardest. And these things, the hardest, feel the best because they represent achievement. This blog is about being lucky, working hard, achieving goals, and being what I've decided to be: happy.

5/31/2025 1 Comment

My Promise

All we nonspeakers are, inside, actually not really abnormal. We are mainly disabled, apparently on the outside. I realize that we look quite abnormal to most people. I also realize that we are really eccentric. But over and over we have shown that we are way more capable than most of the world thinks.

Wanting a fulfilling life really is not asking much. Wanting to be educated and to have friends are modest demands. But we are not even given these opportunities. The status quo always puts us on the lowest rung of the ladder. Particularly hard is the fact that the establishment persistently insists that we are intellectually disabled. I am incredibly intelligent; I am beyond tired of being treated as though I’m not.

We are more able than people understand. I am waiting for the world to catch on. I want to achieve great things because I am capable of achieving great things. Feeling helpless because I am held in thrall by my communication disability must stop. I am determined to totally fulfill my promise.

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5/8/2025 1 Comment

No Progress?...No Problem

We are presumed incompetent our entire lives. We are shoved into classes for the profoundly cognitively disabled, and/or ABA programs where we fail to make any meaningful progress, with speech thrown in as a related service. We make no meaningful progress there either. Year after year after year our IEPs have the same goals. “Alex will respond to one word commands with 80% accuracy.” “Alex will say his name when asked with 80% accuracy.” When we fail to meet these goals, nothing happens: no one is actually held responsible. In any other profession, there are standards that must be met. (Well…almost any profession!) The investment banker who does no deals won’t last long. The chef who doesn't cook will be on unemployment faster than I can type c-h-e-f.

But no one cares if we learn nothing from our school teachers or our speech pathologists. No one cares if Alex Gorman spends years unsuccessfully learning to say his name. In fact, we applaud ineptitude by actively fighting against progress.

I spent years putting pennies into a coffee can as a “play activity” in school. Years. I spent years trying to use my mouth to speak, but can still only approximate maybe 10 words. And every one of my teachers not only kept their jobs, but they have the combined weight of New York State and ASHA protecting them. I can’t write a more scathing review of what others call education for the disabled. During all my school years, I displayed zero progress (because I physically could not do what they were asking me to do)…and it was torture.

Someday we will actually be accepted as the human beings we are. I look forward to that day.

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