DEVELOPED WITH PARTICIPANT
VIRAJ DHANDA
I imagine I can speak.
Viraj Dhanda
A boy is watching television. On the screen, cartoon characters spell out the word "waterfall," letter by letter. Before the last letter appears, he has already chosen the right ones, in the right order, on the board in front of him. His father, Sumit Dhanda, stops and looks again. Viraj is twelve, nonspeaking, diagnosed with autism and severe apraxia - a condition that leaves him with almost no control over his own hands. Until this moment, no one had tested whether 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.
His babysitter and later tutor, Olivia Henning, brought in the first communication device when he was around ten. It 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.
His babysitter and later tutor, Olivia Henning, brought in the first communication device when he was around ten. It 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, spelling "waterfall" faster than the television could. Sumit started looking for other ways for his son to write: bigger boards first, then a smaller custom keyboard, and eventually a standard keyboard on a tablet. Viraj found he could type most 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 far below where this new testing did - the family says it put him in the 99th percentile, ready for college-level math. At Fusion Academy Newton, where Viraj later enrolled, students learn one-on-one, and the staff built a program around what he could now show them.
Math turned out to be where he was strongest. He liked calculus especially. He scored a 35 out of 36 on the ACT, graduated from Fusion Academy Newton in 2025, and was accepted to MIT. He took a gap year and starts there this fall.
Math turned out to be where he was strongest. He liked calculus especially. He scored a 35 out of 36 on the ACT, graduated from Fusion Academy Newton in 2025, and was accepted to MIT. He took a gap year and starts 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 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. Olivia Henning brought the first device. Sumit kept trying new ones and pushed for a second evaluation when the first no 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. Olivia Henning brought the first device. Sumit kept trying new ones and pushed for a second evaluation when the first no 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're writing a memoir, Twice Exceptional, due from Atria Books 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're writing a memoir, Twice Exceptional, due from Atria Books 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.”
