Click in image above to play video
Social media is changing the world, we know that already. But for one girl, it has already changed her world.
Carly Fleischmann is autistic. Now sixteen, she has lived with autism all her life. Carly was diagnosed at a young age, and has also been identified as being mentally challenged.
Though her parents put her through rigorous therapy that spanned thousands of hours throughout her life, she showed little improvement until she sat down before a laptop one day.
Then, Carly found her voice.
Today, at carlysvoice.com, Carly Fleischmann shares her thoughts and feelings with the world. She has a Twitter account, and uses email regularly. People from all over the world email her, asking her about autism.
Most of us know autism to be a developmental disorder that affects the brain’s normal development of social and communication skills. When we hear of autism, we think of savants who have no control over their physical bodies.
Carly is no different. But when she sat down before the laptop that fateful day, her therapists found out that she could type. Within Carly’s body is a perfectly normal girl, who likes boys and lipgloss. She just has no control over her physical self.
Carly first shot to fame with a news package ABC News did on her, which has made its rounds around the world as a YouTube clip titled Autistic Girl Expresses Profound Intelligence. In it, Carly is shown to type out words, sentences, entire blog posts.
With her voice, Carly became an ambassador for autism, and has even appeared on TV with celebrities like Ellen Degeneres. But her outreach around the world, to ordinary people like you and me, would not have been possible without social media.
These days, Carly tweets regularly. She is also active on Facebook, with her own Facebook page. Carly has also written and published a book with the help of her ever-supportive father. Titled “Carly’s Voice: Breaking Through Autism”, it will be released at the end of March 2012.
But in spite of Carly’s amazing ‘voice’, her world would be a very different one without social media to connect her to the rest of the more able-bodied world.
Today, Carly has her voice, because social media was powerful enough to let others listen to it.
