In this collection of beautiful and raw essays, Amy S. F. Lutz writes openly about her experience—the positive and the negative—as a mother of a now twenty-one-year-old son with severe autism. Lutz's human emotion drives through each page and challenges commonly held ideas that define autism either as a disease or as neurodiversity.
We Walk
is inspired by her own questions: What is the place of intellectually and developmentally disabled people in society? What responsibilities do we, as citizens and human beings, have to one another? Who should decide for those who cannot decide for themselves? What is the meaning of religion to someone with no abstract language? Exploring these questions,
directly—and humanly—examines social issues such as inclusion, religion, therapeutics, and friendship through the lens of severe autism.
In a world where public perception of autism is largely shaped by the "quirky geniuses" featured on television shows like
The Big Bang Theory
and
The Good Doctor
,
demands that we center our debates about this disorder on those who are most affected by its impacts.