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Autism through talent
DEVELOPED WITH PARTICIPANT
VIRAJ DHANDA
I imagine I can speak.
Viraj Dhanda
A boy who can barely articulate half the letters of the English alphabet is watching television. On the screen, a cartoon character speaks out the word "waterfall”. Before the word is spelled on the screen, the boy verbalizes select letters from the word in the right order. His father, Sumit Dhanda, stops and looks again. Viraj is nearly thirteen, nonspeaking, diagnosed with autism and severe apraxia - a condition that leaves him with limited control over his movements. Until this moment, no one believed he could read.
For years, when he needed to say something and had no way to say it, he dropped to the floor, or moved his body the only way it would move. The adults around him read this as behavior. He knew he was telling them something else.
A babysitter suggested a communication device when he was ten. The first version offered four words: yes, no, stop, go. It didn't go far. A more flexible system followed - one where he could choose between music, food, places, things he actually wanted - and it reached further into his world than the first one had.
A babysitter suggested a communication device when he was ten. The first version offered four words: yes, no, stop, go. It didn't go far. A more flexible system followed - one where he could choose between music, food, places, things he actually wanted - and it reached further into his world than the first one had.
Then came the letter board, and a way to spell out his thoughts. After that, Sumit started looking for other ways for his son to communicate: bigger, custom keyboards first, then a smaller keyboard, and eventually a standard keyboard on a tablet. Viraj found he could type reliably with his right thumb. A text-to-speech program read the words aloud once he'd typed them. One of the first sentences he remembers writing was: I imagine I can speak.
How a father's persistence unlocked his son's brilliance
After that, Sumit asked for another evaluation. The earlier ones had placed Viraj in the 1st percentile. The new evaluation placed his math skills in the 99th percentile, ready for college-level calculus. At Fusion Academy, Newton, where Viraj later enrolled, students learn one-on-one, and the staff built a program around what he could show them.
He excelled at all his subjects but loved calculus. He scored a 35 out of 36 on the ACT, graduated from Fusion Academy in 2025, and was accepted to MIT. He took a gap year and just started there this fall.
He excelled at all his subjects but loved calculus. He scored a 35 out of 36 on the ACT, graduated from Fusion Academy in 2025, and was accepted to MIT. He took a gap year and just started there this fall.
None of it undid the apraxia. Viraj is still nonspeaking. In 2025 the Boston Globe put a number on how he types: about eight to ten words a minute, one thumb-tap at a time. A conversation with him takes longer than most people are used to giving. Asked once about meeting other MIT students, he answered: "If you are patient, we can hang together.
Viraj’s path changed gradually, through the right tools, repeated reassessment, and people willing to adjust their expectations. A babysitter suggested the first device. Sumit kept trying new ones and pushed for a second evaluation when the first evaluation longer matched what he was seeing. Fusion Academy rebuilt its expectations around him. A tablet and a keyboard gave him a way to answer for himself, on his own schedule, in his own words.
He's started speaking about this in public now, in his own way. In August 2026 he was a featured speaker at the National Neurodiversity Leadership Summit in Denver, and he's a Celebrity Ambassador for The Neurodiversity Alliance.
Viraj’s path changed gradually, through the right tools, repeated reassessment, and people willing to adjust their expectations. A babysitter suggested the first device. Sumit kept trying new ones and pushed for a second evaluation when the first evaluation longer matched what he was seeing. Fusion Academy rebuilt its expectations around him. A tablet and a keyboard gave him a way to answer for himself, on his own schedule, in his own words.
He's started speaking about this in public now, in his own way. In August 2026 he was a featured speaker at the National Neurodiversity Leadership Summit in Denver, and he's a Celebrity Ambassador for The Neurodiversity Alliance.
He writes poetry and essays. In 2025, he and Sumit received the HollyRod Hero Award from the HollyRod Foundation.
Together they’ve written a memoir, Twice Exceptional, due from Atria Books/Simon & Schuster in June 2027 - his father's account of trying to understand what his son needed, next to his own account of having been there the whole time, unable to answer in the form people expected of him.
Together they’ve written a memoir, Twice Exceptional, due from Atria Books/Simon & Schuster in June 2027 - his father's account of trying to understand what his son needed, next to his own account of having been there the whole time, unable to answer in the form people expected of him.
When CBS asked Viraj, “Do you think there are other kids like you?” he answered: “Absolutely. I just have the tools and the support needed to demonstrate my intelligence.”
