By Ditte Young
Updated on October 23, 2026
Estimated reading time: 15 minutes
Why do we become uncomfortable when someone cannot speak, cannot see, cannot walk, or does not respond to the world as we expect? Why do we sometimes look away from a person with a disability, or speak to the person accompanying them instead of addressing them directly?
And perhaps the most important question of all is why we so often assume that a person who cannot communicate in a conventional way must somehow understand less, feel less, or have less to contribute to the world.
I have been asking myself these questions for many years, not only because I work as a therapist and communicate telepathically with animals and people, but because I am the mother of a son who has spent his entire life challenging society’s understanding of what it means to be human.
My son, Philip, was born blind.
He is autistic and lives with the consequences of a brain injury, and although he has gained a small amount of vision over the years, the world has never been as accessible to him as it is to most people.
When Philip was born, I entered a world I had never imagined I would have to navigate. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by medical professionals, assessments, diagnoses, and conversations about everything my child might never be able to do.
People were concerned about his limitations, his development, and his future. I understood why, because I was frightened too. I was a mother who loved her child and desperately wanted to know whether he would be happy, whether he would have friends, whether he would experience love, and whether the world would ever make room for him.
Somewhere along the way, I began to realize that many of the things people feared about Philip had very little to do with who he actually was.
They had much more to do with what society believed a person should be able to do in order to live a meaningful life.
There is a word for the prejudice and discrimination that people with disabilities experience, and that word is ableism.
Ableism is not always obvious or intentional. Sometimes it shows up in how buildings are designed, in schools’ expectations, or in opportunities people are denied because their abilities don’t fit a system built for the majority.
But it also exists in our everyday interactions, in the assumptions we make about intelligence, independence, happiness, and quality of life.
I have experienced this countless times as Philip’s mother.
I have watched people become uncertain about how to approach him, and I have experienced situations where people spoke to me about him while he stood right beside me, perfectly capable of hearing what they were saying.
It is as though his disabilities sometimes make people forget that there is a person standing in front of them.
A young man with his own personality, preferences, sense of humor, and understanding of the world.
I often wonder what would happen if we stopped focusing so intensely on what people cannot do and became genuinely curious about who they are.
Because being unable to do something does not automatically mean that a person is unhappy, unintelligent, or incapable of experiencing a rich and meaningful life.
It simply means that their life may look different from ours.
Before Philip was born, I had already experienced what I describe as telepathic communication, particularly with animals. Becoming his mother changed how I understood that ability and eventually led me to dedicate my professional life to animal communication, therapy, and exploring connections beyond spoken language.
Philip taught me that communication is not limited to the words we say or the sentences we can construct.
As his mother, I had to pay attention to things many people take for granted. I learned to notice subtle changes in his behavior, his emotional responses, his body language, and how he expressed himself when conventional communication was difficult.
I also began to understand how easily we misunderstand someone when we expect them to communicate by our rules.
We tend to believe communication happens when one person speaks and another listens, but what happens when someone experiences the world differently, processes information differently, or cannot express what they are feeling the way we expect?
Does that mean there is nothing happening inside them?
Of course not.
And yet I believe this is one of the most damaging assumptions we make about people who are nonspeaking or have significant communication disabilities.
We sometimes confuse the ability to express intelligence with intelligence itself. We confuse the ability to speak with the ability to understand. And we confuse independence with human worth.
These are very different things.
I have spent years working with animals who cannot communicate with us through human language, and one of the things that has always fascinated me is how willing people can be to recognize emotions, personalities, and individual preferences in their animals while sometimes struggling to extend that same curiosity to human beings who communicate differently.
I find that contradiction extraordinary.
I sometimes wonder whether our discomfort around disability comes from the fact that it reminds us of something we would rather not acknowledge.
That we are vulnerable.
That our bodies and minds are not entirely within our control.
That independence, which so many of us value above almost everything else, is not guaranteed throughout our lives.
We can become ill, lose our sight, experience an accident, or find ourselves dependent on other people in ways we never imagined.
Perhaps seeing someone with a disability reminds us of that possibility, and instead of confronting our own fears, we unconsciously distance ourselves from the person standing in front of us.
I don’t believe most people intend to be cruel or dismissive. I believe many simply don’t know what to say or how to behave, and their uncertainty sometimes becomes avoidance.
There is a difference between not knowing something and being unwilling to learn.
As Philip’s mother, I have never expected the world to understand every aspect of his disabilities. I have, however, hoped that people would approach him with the same respect, patience, and genuine interest they would offer anyone else.
I don’t need people to feel sorry for him. I need them to see him. And I believe many parents of children with disabilities understand exactly what I mean.
Because while our children may need additional support, accommodations, and care, they do not need to be reduced to the challenges they live with.
They deserve relationships, dignity, opportunities, and the freedom to be recognized as individuals.
There is another side of raising a child with significant disabilities that I believe deserves much more attention, and that is the emotional reality of being a parent who knows their child may always depend on other people.
When Philip was little, I worried about whether he would develop the skills he needed to navigate the world. As he grew older, my concerns changed, but they never disappeared.
Today, as the mother of an adult son, I think about his future differently.
I think about whether the people responsible for supporting him will take the time to understand him, recognize his needs, respect his boundaries, and treat him as a human being rather than a collection of diagnoses and administrative decisions.
And, like many parents in my situation, I have had to confront the uncomfortable question of what happens when I am no longer here to advocate for him.
Who will know him the way I do?
Who will notice when something is wrong?
Who will understand what makes him happy, what overwhelms him, and what he is trying to communicate?
These questions don’t disappear simply because a child reaches adulthood.
In many ways, they become even more important.
I have met so many parents who carry these concerns quietly because they feel they are supposed to be strong, grateful, and positive all the time.
But loving a child with disabilities does not mean that you never feel exhausted, frightened, frustrated, or uncertain.
It means that you love your child while also living with the responsibility of navigating a world that is not always designed to support them.
I think we need to become much more comfortable talking about that reality without turning disability itself into a tragedy.
This is one reason an upcoming episode of The Animal’s Voice means so much to me personally.
In this episode, I welcome Johanna and Keplyn from Michigan, the parents of a wonderful autistic girl named Eliana, who does not communicate through spoken language.
I have had the privilege of working with this family for several years, and through what I experience as telepathic communication, I have tried to serve as an additional bridge between Eliana and her parents.
My work with Eliana has never been about assuming that I know more about her than the people who love and care for her every day. It has been about exploring another possible way of understanding her experiences, feelings, preferences, and needs, while respecting the importance of the communication methods and professional support available to her.
Telepathic communication is not a scientifically established method of determining another person’s thoughts, and I do not see my work as a replacement for evidence-based communication support. It is an intuitive approach that I practice, and one that Eliana’s family has chosen to explore alongside the other ways they understand and support their daughter.
What makes their story so meaningful to me is not simply whether telepathy can offer another perspective.
It is the willingness of two parents to stay curious about their daughter and keep looking for ways to understand her, rather than assuming that her inability to speak defines the limits of her inner world.
During our conversation, Johanna and Keplyn share what it has been like to raise Eliana, the questions they carry about her future, and the experiences that have shaped their understanding of her.
We also explore something I wish more people would consider when they encounter a nonspeaking autistic child.
Not being able to speak does not mean having nothing to say.
A child may have thoughts, preferences, humor, emotions, boundaries, and opinions that are difficult to express through conventional language.
Although we should never presume to know exactly what another person is thinking, we should be equally careful not to assume that silence means a lack of understanding.
For parents, the challenge is often finding ways to recognize and respect what their child is communicating without projecting their own expectations.
That requires patience, humility, and a willingness to accept that we may not always have the answers.
One of the things that concerns me most about our society is how strongly we associate human value with productivity and independence.
We celebrate people who can achieve, perform, compete, and take care of themselves, while those who need lifelong assistance are too often viewed through the lens of what they cost society or what they cannot contribute.
But why have we decided that independence should be one of the primary measures of a successful human life?
Why should a person who needs help getting dressed, preparing a meal, communicating, or navigating public spaces be considered less capable of experiencing joy, connection, love, or personal fulfillment?
Philip has taught me that a meaningful life does not have to resemble the life I once imagined for him.
He has also taught me that my responsibility as his mother is not to turn him into someone who fits society’s expectations, but to help create the circumstances in which he can experience the best possible life as himself.
That does not mean ignoring his challenges or pretending that disability never creates difficulties.
Of course it does.
Families like ours face practical realities, emotional challenges, and systemic barriers every single day.
But there is an enormous difference between recognizing that a person needs support and believing that their life is somehow less valuable because of it.
I wish we would talk more about that distinction.
When I look back at my life, I sometimes wonder who I would have become if Philip had not been born.
I know that I would not be the same person.
His arrival changed my priorities, my understanding of communication, and eventually the direction of my professional life.
He is one of the reasons I became a full-time animal communicator, clairvoyant, and family therapist, and why I began exploring how my intuitive work might also be relevant to families whose children communicate differently.
But I want to be careful about something here.
I do not believe Philip was born with disabilities so that I could learn a lesson only for my sake, and I do not believe that children with disabilities only exist to inspire the rest of us.
Philip is not a lesson.
He is my son.
He is a human being with a life that belongs to him, and whatever I have learned from being his mother is my experience, not his responsibility.
I think that distinction matters because even the most well-intentioned stories about disability can sometimes become more about what nondisabled people gain from witnessing someone else’s challenges than about the person living that life.
I am grateful for everything motherhood has taught me, but I would never want that gratitude to overshadow Philip’s right to be recognized for who he is.
And perhaps that is where our understanding of disability needs to begin.
Not with admiration, pity, or fear, but with genuine respect.
When we encounter someone who communicates differently, I think our first instinct is often to wonder what is wrong, what they understand, or what they will never be able to do.
But what if we approached them with curiosity instead of assumptions?
What if we asked how we could make communication more accessible, how we could respect their choices, and what we might need to change about our own behavior to make the interaction easier?
What if we accepted that a person doesn’t have to communicate like us to deserve to be heard?
I believe we would begin to see a very different society.
One where parents would not have to fight so hard to have their children understood, where professionals would take more time to recognize the individual behind a diagnosis, and where people with disabilities would not constantly have to demonstrate their abilities in order to be treated with dignity.
I know we are not there yet.
I have spent eighteen years witnessing both the kindness people are capable of and the barriers that still exist for families like mine.
But I also believe that conversations can change the way we see one another, particularly when we are willing to listen to experiences that challenge our assumptions.
That is why I wanted to share Eliana’s story and why I am so grateful to Johanna and Keplyn for allowing us into such a personal part of their lives.
Their experiences are their own, just as mine with Philip are mine, but I believe many parents will recognize themselves in the questions we explore together.
I hope that people who have never lived with disability in their immediate family will listen too.
Disability should not have to become part of your own life before you begin to care about how people with disabilities are treated.
Perhaps the question is not why people with disabilities are different from us, but why we have created a society that finds those differences so difficult to accommodate.
And perhaps we should spend less time being afraid of disability and more time being afraid of what happens when we stop seeing the human being behind it.
In an upcoming episode of The Animal’s Voice, I sit down with Johanna and Keplyn from Michigan to discuss their experiences raising their nonspeaking autistic daughter, Eliana, and the role that telepathic communication has played in our work together over the past several years.
It is a personal conversation about parenting, communication, uncertainty, love, and what it means to keep searching for ways to understand a child who experiences the world differently.
You can listen to The Animal’s Voice with Ditte Young on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch the episodes on YouTube.
If you are a parent or caregiver of a nonspeaking or neurodivergent child and are curious about my approach to intuitive and telepathic communication, you can also explore my Masterclass for Parents & Caregivers at www.ditteyoung.com
Ditte Young is an animal communicator, licensed therapist, author, and mother. Through her work with animals, individuals, and families, she explores communication, emotional connection, and the importance of recognizing the individual beyond conventional expectations.
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