TIME

Naoki Higashida

The Japanese author of The Reason I Jump and Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 describes what it’s like to be a person with nonverbal autism

You mostly cannot express your thoughts through speaking, but you’ve published more than 20 books. How does your writing process work? My basic methods of communication are my letter board and computer. The letter-board method involves a card with the alphabet arranged in the QWERTY format. I point to individual letters and “voice” the letters as I touch them. I can also type on a computer keyboard, but

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