Grace is a beautiful, loving, loveable, affectionate and fun girl who is challenged with the developmental disability of autism.

Grace's artistic ability was discovered at age four when she began working with an art therapist in addition to a myriad of typical early interventions for autism. Since then she has exhibited on Washington's Capitol Hill and various greater Nashville locations including: Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Streets, Chapel Bistro, The Mall at Green Hills,Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and Metro Davidson County School Board, Middle Tennessee State University and more. Her work is also in numerous private collections including U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, MD and former NFL Miami Dolphin player Dan Marino. Regional, state and national publications have featured her art.

Autism affects Grace's ability to verbally communicate, interact socially and fully comprehend the world around her. Although the ability to engage in typical conversation eludes her, and she lacks mastery of simply writing her name, Grace is able to powerfully express herself through the medium of intense color and composition.

I was doing some research to better work with one of my students and ran across this little girl from Tennessee who is autistic and comunicates through art. It is interested to see new ways to communicate with these children since autism affects boys more then girls and largely remains a mystery.