Experiment 3: Poem

Proposal: After working with a group of nonverbal preschoolers on the autism spectrum last year in one of my psychology classes, I knew I was meant to spend my life working with or for people with special needs. I created a lesson plan and got to interact with the students for a long time, but I never got to audibly hear their reaction to the lesson plan. However, I read their body language, researched what it is like to live inside their minds, and understood how they felt. In response to this, I have decided to create a free-form poem that is written from the point of view of someone that works closely with and loves someone with autism. The poem will act as a ‘voice for the voiceless’ as I elaborate on how people with autism experience their lives and what we can do to make it better. I plan to include specific unique experiences of the people with autism such as the sensory overstimulation they so often deal with, opinions on issues such as using the ‘R word,’ feelings based on how other people/outsiders make them feel, and traits that humanize people with autism for those readers that don’t understand the impairment and react with hostility. By including each of these facets, the poem will express my own love for people with autism that I found in my psychology course, the research that I do regarding what it’s like to have autism, ways to love a person with autism and a comment on a society that doesn’t accept people with disabilities.