I love Koko.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5649239/?GT1=4529

I think the fact that we can teach a gorilla to communicate is amazing. Once that first step towards establishing a frame of reference for communication is made, everything else can fall into place. It's that first step that sets up understanding that's key. Like how European settlers were able to establish communication with the American Indians, which has always fascinated me. I know I'm obsessed with communication and its means and possibilities, but I feel like the same principles in which we can find a common ground of understanding between humans and a gorilla can be used in finding a common ground with autistic people, or those whose perceptions exist differently from the majority.

They say that my brother is an extraordinary case because he's PDD but can understand the connection between emotion as the murky, amorphous shades of color, texture and feeling from within, and the two-dimensional symbols which they are represented by and referred to within communication. But it took a long time, and a lot of patience in trying to figure out what symbols meant to him and what meanings he attached to things, in order to flip that switch that made him understand what was represented by what. It all comes down to that first step, that first epiphany regarding relationships of symbols and what they represent, when we realize a=1, b=2, etc., forming some sort of constant for interpretation, then everything else can be deciphered.

By the way, English was created by idiots.