E non autistic to have a cultural exchange with an

[i.e. non-autistic] to have a cultural exchange with an octopus with
interpretation than it may be for a person with interpretation to comprehend
someone who functions without it, primarily on the level of sensing [i.e.
autistic]. (Williams 1998, p.107)
Autistic Culture? 133
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Chapter 6
What Language Are They Speaking?
I turned to see Kath crying.
‘I never thought he had any language,’ she said. ‘Now I see he
does. I just don’t know how to speak it… We think it is we who
have to teach autistic people…now I see it is us who have so much
to learn from them.’ (Williams 1999b, p.170)
I tried to grasp the Millers’ efforts. They tried equally hard to
come to grips with mine… They were coming from a foreign
place and speaking a foreign language just like I was. I began to
see that given how totally different our underlying systems were, it
was a miracle that we bothered at all. (Williams 1999c, pp.97–8)
We assume that language is necessarily verbal (i.e. comprising of words). That
is why we say that children are verbal if they can talk (no matter that their
verbal output is just a combination of echolalic phrases) and that they are
non-verbal if they cannot produce verbal output. Donna Williams brilliantly
illustrates this misleading conclusion with a story about a ‘talking’ parrot:
People buy a parrot and they think that they teach it to speak. In spite of
teaching, the parrot learns (maybe he is bored out of his mind or learns
he gets rewarded for performing). The people are impressed because
they now have a ‘clever’ parrot. Their parrot can ‘do things’. An expert
comes along and says the parrot only appears to speak. But the parrot
did have language. Beyond cheap tricks, the parrot has always had
language. Ithad and always will have its own. (Williams 1999c, p.20)
134
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Same Language?
Account: s8491389

As the original experience of the world of autistic children is sensory-based,
their original internal language (as a tool of formulation and expressing
thoughts) consists of sensory-perceptual (multidimensional) images. This
‘language’ becomes central to their intellectual and emotional development.