SEPTEMBER 18, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Children doodle; it’s a known fact.
Some pieces are individual works of art, while others are simply innocent mishmashes of various shapes and lines.
But Melissa O’Sullivan saw things unmistakably two years ago when she came across drawings of penciled space men and oddly-shaped beings. In her son’s drawings, the Ridgewood mother of three not only saw pure art, but she also saw signs of enriched expression from a child with an impaired ability to communicate.
“We were just amazed,” O’Sullivan told The Ridgewood News last week, as she shared one of several spiral-bound notebooks full of her son Jake Soper’s sketches and doodles.
Jake, 13, is a freshman enrolled in the Ridgewood Intensive Special Education (RISE) program and has high-functioning autism. Though he has difficulty articulating his thoughts, he speaks clearly and honestly.
He also has mastery over pen and paper, and that’s a skill O’Sullivan and her family have recognized.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/mother-son-emerge-as-autism-heroes-1.1412647
Autistic Hero Teeshirts is a T-shirt brand featuring infant/toddler/youth/adult clothing based on Autistic cartoonist Jake Soper’s drawings.
Great story thanks for sharing.