09/29/2026
As a child, I was labeled “nonverbal” until I was eight years old. I also couldn’t read until I was nine. I couldn’t spell, read, or communicate what I needed in class. My apraxia affected my speech and movement throughout my body & not just my spoken speech. I didn’t yet have the words to explain why some things were so hard for me.
I still remember my second-grade teacher punching my desk.
I was trying to spell words on paper. I couldn’t make my body do what I wanted, and I didn’t understand how to spell the words. I couldn’t read yet, and I couldn’t explain what was happening or ask for help. I wanted help. I was trying to speak to him, but he became impatient. His eyes widened. Then he got angry and punched my desk.
I was a child, and I was scared. I ran.
I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for an hour. I was having an asthma attack. When my mom arrived, I wouldn’t answer the door at first. Then I heard her say, “Jordan, it’s Mom,” a few times. I ran out and hugged her leg.
My mom told my teacher she knew something had happened, even though she didn’t yet know what. He lied about it. My mom took me home, figured out what had happened, escalated the situation, filed a complaint, and contacted the state. She did what she could to make things right.
I didn’t write about this in The Boy Who Proved Them Wrong, my second children’s book about growing up nonspeaking. It was too painful to put on the page. Even in that book, there are things that happened behind the scenes. I also wrote an letter for the second book for my second-grade speech-language pathologist, who told my mom in front of me that I would never speak on my own. I never published it. It’s still in my drafts.
I look back on that day and think about how often my struggle to communicate was mistaken for defiance or noncompliance. I wasn’t choosing not to do the work. I was trying, but I didn’t yet know how to read, spell, or explain what I needed. Somehow, the lack of access was blamed on me instead of on an environment that didn’t understand or support me. People saw that I couldn’t speak and assumed I couldn’t understand or think. They were wrong.
This was never a choice. It isn’t a choice for people living with childhood apraxia of speech or apraxia that affects movement throughout the body.
I’m sharing this because children who are nonspeaking or have difficulty communicating may not be able to tell adults what happened in the way adults expect. Sometimes distress is the only way a child can show that something is wrong. Please don’t mistake silence for a lack of understanding, or difficulty communicating for defiance. Be patient. Find another way to listen.
I wish the adults around me had understood how hard I was trying. Every child deserves to feel safe, believed, and supported, even when they can’t explain what they’re going through with words.
Today, I’ve written five children’s books about my childhood growing up "nonverbal." When I was a child, I searched for myself in books. I wanted other kids to find that kind of representation, too. Now, children bring my books to the first day of class, carry them everywhere, sleep with them under their pillows, or tell me, “He’s just like me.”
That’s why I keep telling my story.
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