Brookline, Massachusetts — Like most people with autism, 19-year-old Viraj Dhanda of Brookline, Massachusetts, came into this world disguised as a typical baby. Until he was about 18 months old.
“There were a lot of milestones he was missing,” his father, Sumit Dhanda, told CBS News. “…You know, first the gap is just a little. Then it’s bigger. Then it’s like a chasm. And now you’re starting to hear from the doctors, ‘Well, he’s going to need care for the rest of his life. He’s never going to be able to communicate.'”
Sumit, a single father who raised his son alone, spent Viraj’s first 14 years trying to teach him numbers, ABCs, the basics. But nothing seemed to stick, at least not that he could tell because Viraj also has apraxia – a neurological disorder which means he cannot speak or control his fingers enough to type, with the exception of his right thumb.
When Sumit determined that Viraj could type with his right thumb, giving Viraj a way to communicate, the floodgates opened.
Communicating through his iPad, Viraj told CBS News it was “frustrating” having everyone incorrectly believe he was mentally disabled for all these years.
“I desperately wanted the world to know that I had a fully functional brain,” Viraj said.
Actually, it is well beyond fully functional. In less than three years, Viraj went from basic math to calculus. He scored 35 out of 36 on his ACT, graduated high school this spring from the Fusion Academy Newton, a private school in Newton, Massachusetts, and just got accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
“I was ecstatic,” Viraj said of when he learned he had been accepted to MIT. “Getting into MIT didn’t just feel like a personal victory for me, but a breakthrough for the entire nonspeaking autistic community.”
Viraj believes there are others like him, whose abilities and acumen have been hidden.
“Absolutely, I’m not that special,” Viraj said. “I just have the tools and the support needed to demonstrate my intelligence.”
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