In 1998 my youngest brother, Kelton, was diagnosed with autism, a developmental disability that affects communication and social interaction. Autism currently affects 1/88 people in the United States. Kelton is a talented individual who runs cross-country and track, wrestles, plays the drums, loves history, and collects bobble heads and keychains.

This year Kelton decided to enroll in his first art class where he discovered his skill for drawing. His unorthodox style made me reconsider my artwork and examine the differences and similarities that exist between our perspectives. According to Paul Collins’ Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism, artists are four times more likely to have autism in their families. Considering the number of artists in my family, this statistic made me question the similarities that exist between Kelton and me. For this reason, we have decided to draw one of his 6,481 keychains a day for one year. These drawings will be as simple and uninhibited as possible. This project will explore our individual perspectives and examine the similarities that exist between us as artists.

Day 171


I was looking through Lance Mannion’s tweets, a blogger who writes about art, culture, politics, and life and has a son with Asperger’s syndrome, because he attended a screening for the documentary Wretches and Jabberers. This documentary is about two men with autism, Larry and Tracy, who travel the world to promote autism, meet new people, and tell their stories. Larry and Tracy both have verbal skills, but mostly communicate with type. I followed Mannion’s tweets because he made comments and observations about the screening and the Q&A session afterwards.



I found this particular tweet to be interesting because I felt like it related to Kelt’s education. By the end of middle school most self-contained classrooms start to deemphasize academics and begin focusing on life and transition skills. These skills are necessary for every young person, but don’t typically become a priority until a later age. When Kelt was in middle school we started to realize that students with high-functioning autism don’t always fit into the typical special education curriculum. They have the ability to learn, but have a different learning style and require more one-on-one help. They also need more help with communication, sometimes through sign language or an alternative system, which was the case for Tracy. He had the capacity to learn, but simply didn’t have a way to communicate. Luckily the mysteries of autism and communication are being solved and more alternative and augmentative communication devices are being created and used.



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