Creative Pieces… 87 My Remarkable Life So Far by Emma Cladis
I think I will highlight what comes to mind about my very short but remarkable life so far. It is good to tell you my road has been a tough one. It is also good to tell you it has been wonderful and full of good surprising times. My name is Emma Cladis; I am twenty-four years old. I have autism and am non-speaking. Thanks to Soma Mukhopadhyay, my first typing teacher, I learned to type to communicate at six years old. That is when my life changed from slipping into autism’s silence to engaging with the world. I worked hard to prove it was me communicating by more and more independent typing. I was mainstreamed into second grade and have stayed in typical education classes ever since. During elementary school, it was a time of learning and sharing the good hope of what was possible for a non-speaking autistic person. Somewhere around 2005, I met a wonderful person: my communication mentor, Darlene Hanson; she and I still work together today. It is mostly on my speech, since I am becoming more and more verbal. She has been my guide from apraxia to speech, chaos to communicating, by typing, and now verbally. In 2009, I was awarded the Yes I Can! Award for academic excellence from the Council of Exceptional Children. They flew me to their annual conference in Seattle, and I got to share my story. This inclusive conference experience began my passion for advocating for all people who have differences. I love bringing hope where there is sadness. Since then, over the years, I have had many amazing opportunities to present at schools and conferences, in-
