I Am Intelligent

This book recounts how Peyton Goddard overcame the physical and mental obstacles of severe autism. Peyton’s inability to verbally communicate or control her body led to continual misdiagnoses, pity, and segregation from normal education and society. After suffering 21 years of mistreatment, neglect, and disturbing abuse by those supposed to aid her—extended family, doctors, and teachers—Peyton is finally given the chance to express her intelligence and awareness. Through her use of facilitated communication, by which noncommunicative people speak via computer keyboard, Peyton is finally freed not only from her bodily restraints but also from society’s pitiful image projected upon her. The book details the Goddard family’s extreme highs and lows in dealing with Peyton’s progress through fluid narratives from the perspective of her mother, Dianne, interspersed with Peyton’s own poetic reactions. From years of being dismissed by the education system as lacking the ability to learn, to eventually graduating from college as valedictorian, Peyton proves that inclusion of disabled people is necessary for their livelihood and growth, regardless of the challenge it presents to society. This debut memoir allows Peyton Goddard to further achieve her goal of helping others in similar positions by spreading her “voice” by virtue of text, the very thing that saved her. Agent: Stacey Glick, Dystel & Goderich. (June)