DearReader,

Oof. This is my wake up moment in the next podcast episode.

Mary is standing in a government center with her son, Alex. He needs to use the bathroom. She shows his disability card. She tries to explain. There's a language barrier. The staff member doesn't understand.

And before she can bridge that gap, he wets himself.

In public. In front of other families.

She described it as dehumanizing.

What struck me wasn't just the incident itself. It was realizing that for Mary, this wasn't a one-off moment. Her son couldn't reliably make himself understood, and the world wasn't set up to meet him halfway.

Mary's son is a non-verbal autistic, and I went into this conversation thinking it would be a story about technology—AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) devices, iPads, and assistive communication.

It wasn't.

Or at least not in the way I expected.

The line that stayed with me was simple:

"I knew he was in there."

Because that's not a statement about technology. It's a statement about faith.

A commitment to believe your child understands, even when they can't show it in ways the world recognizes.

There's a moment later when Alex appears to be having a meltdown. Mary asks him how he's feeling. He presses "frustrated." She asks why. He presses "ketchup."

Again and again.

From the outside, it looks random. It looks like noise.

But she stays curious.

Eventually, they realize he's hungry.

It's such a small moment, but it changed how I think about communication. How often are we misreading what children are trying to tell us because it doesn't arrive in a form we're used to hearing?

We spend so much time debating whether screens are helping or hurting our kids.

This story sits somewhere else entirely.

Here, the screen isn't the problem.

It's the bridge.

Not because the technology is magical, but because the family learned to treat it as real communication.

Technology didn't make Alex more capable.

It made him more visible.

And as AI and assistive technologies continue to expand how people communicate, that feels like a question worth sitting with: How many people understand more than they're currently able to show us?

If this story resonates with you, I’d love for you to listen to the full episode of Infinite Halls called "Locked Inside, Finally Heard."

If someone comes to mind—a parent, educator, or person building in this space—I hope you'll share it with them.

Peace, Love, and Hairgrease,

Arcadia

P.S. One of the things I admire most about Mary is that she didn't stop at advocating for her own son. She is a problem-solver. Through the Talos Foundation, she's helping families navigate invisible disabilities and creating a world that is a little more understanding, accessible, and humane. If you'd like to learn more about their work, I encourage you to check them out.