Autism Speaks Official Blog

This week’s “In Their Own Words” is the testimony of 10-year-old Ellie Simon, the sister of Danny Simon who has autism. Last week, Ellie spoke before the HGO Committee, testifying in support of HB 1091, Maryland’s autism insurance reform bill. Her dad, Joel, is one of Autism Speaks’ Maryland Advocacy Chairs.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Gordon Simon. I am 10 years old and I am in the fourth grade. I live in Baltimore County and I am here to ask you to support the autism insurance bill. The reason this bill is important to me is because I have a little brother with autism. His name is Danny.

ABA is Applied Behavior Analysis. I don’t really know what Applied Behavior Analysis means but I do know it helped my brother a lot. Before ABA, Danny was always yelling and he would bang his head on the floor. Now he plays with me like a regular brother and goes to a regular school with regular kids. I remember when therapists first came to the house they would ask me to play with Danny. I really didn’t know why at the time but now I know that I was helping him.

Danny sneaks into my room, like any other brother would. Unfortunately, there’s no therapy for that. Danny loves to play Wii and loves to tell jokes. He hates eating fruits and vegetables.

I may not understand all that the grownups talk about but I do understand that my brother is extremely smart. We never would have known how smart he was if he didn’t have ABA therapy because it taught him how to communicate.

I believe that other children deserve the same intervention. My family spent a lot of money on Danny’s ABA therapy. Most people cannot afford to pay what we paid for Danny’s ABA. That’s why I think we should support the autism insurance bill, so other kids with autism can learn to communicate just like Danny did.

If you have a story you wish to share about your personal experience with autism, please send it to editors@autismspeaks.org. Autism Speaks reserves the right to edit contributions for space, style and content. Because of the volume of submissions, not all can be published on the site.