Esperanto helps the autistic kids

My mind still wonders in the Learning Disabilties, a book I read last night.

Can Esperanto help the kids in this area ? How much research have done in this area ?

Why the government of America is not helping the esperantists to continue the research ?

Well, politics, isn't it ?

Parents can forward to help themselves and their kids. Can't they ?

Many question pop up and I recalled a report and here to share with all of you.

It looks like no one knows that we actually did have several Chicago Public Schools teaching Esperanto to 5th graders and to a number of autistic students.

For the autistic kids, Esperanto introduced order into their language with simplification of grammar that confounds people trying to learn English. Those kids were better able to learn English (and communicate with their family and friends) after first getting a grasp on basic communication.

For the other kids, Esperanto introduced language without the burden of grammatical speed-bumps that interfere with learning national languages. In other words, they had immediate success and were therefore not put off from language the way kids get when starting with English to learn French, Italian, Spanish, or Latin.

There were kids in other parts of the USA learning Esperanto too, thanks in large part to the efforts of R Kent Jones, who is no longer with us, and many others. Kent would teach the teachers by phone and mail so that they could keep up with the kids who were eagerly racing forward.  :)

This was an experiment that worked, with no budget, no new teachers. The problem was that it relied entirely on volunteers, grassroots efforts, and evening/weekend time to teach the teachers just a few chapters beyond where they were teaching their students. An official program would help to establish the program into something more self-sustaining.

I taught myself Esperanto when I was in high-school, around 1980. This helped me with further studies of Italian, French, Spanish, Polish, Japanese, and other languages. I don't claim fluency in these, but at an early age I came to understand the structure of language and that helped me to understand any language I later studied. It also allowed me to become more of a world citizen, understanding people in other countries through direct communication.  That is one of the greatest benefits that all Americans can derive by learning this language.

Tony Gravagno
Former President, Esperanto Society of Chicago

from http://www.change.org/ideas/view/obama_introduce_esperanto_as_a_foreign_language_subject_in_schools