MAHA’s treatments for autism: camel’s milk, stem cell injections — and spelling therapy

ELIZABETH BONKER IS A SILENT WOMAN with a loud mission. She wants government agencies to cover the costs of training people with autism in a form of communication called assisted spelling. One problem: Leading professional organizations don’t believe it works.

“All nonspeakers above the age of 5 should be given the opportunity,” typed Bonker, who is 28 and cannot talk. Her mother, Virginia Breen, held a wireless keyboard for her. They sat on a hotel patio before an April 27 meeting with a senior aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.