Temecula Teen with Autism Finds her Voice in Poetry - featured July 13, 2010
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By SARAH BURGE
The Press-Enterprise
So severe is Sydney Edmond's autism, the Temecula 17-year-old cannot speak.
Most of what she relates to the outside world now comes by pointing to letters on a board. Now, she says she wants to be a writer.
Within a couple of years of learning at age 10 to use the letter board -- and later a device with a keyboard that speaks what she types -- Sydney started writing. Her poems give a glimpse of how it feels for her to be trapped in a body she can't control.
This year Sydney and her mother, Lisa Edmond, collected the poems and Sydney's story in a book, "The Purple Tree and other poems," that they had printed at the Grace Mellman Community Library in Temecula. The teen has presenting her work at "open mic" nights at Eclectic Books in Murrieta.
Read the Rest of this Article on The Press-Enterprise.com
By SARAH BURGE
The Press-Enterprise
So severe is Sydney Edmond's autism, the Temecula 17-year-old cannot speak.
Most of what she relates to the outside world now comes by pointing to letters on a board. Now, she says she wants to be a writer.
Within a couple of years of learning at age 10 to use the letter board -- and later a device with a keyboard that speaks what she types -- Sydney started writing. Her poems give a glimpse of how it feels for her to be trapped in a body she can't control.
This year Sydney and her mother, Lisa Edmond, collected the poems and Sydney's story in a book, "The Purple Tree and other poems," that they had printed at the Grace Mellman Community Library in Temecula. The teen has presenting her work at "open mic" nights at Eclectic Books in Murrieta.
Read the Rest of this Article on The Press-Enterprise.com
