The Onion Project: Week 6 ~ Self-Worth and the Right to be Understood

Week 6  The Layer of Language: Self-Worth and the Right to be Understood

Deeper into the onion, we reach the layer where learning and living touch the heart: language and self-worth.

Language is more than vocabulary, grammar, or even expression. It is the mirror through which we come to see ourselves. When a child grows up with full access to language, whether through ASL, Auslan, or any form of genuine communication something profound takes root. They learn that their thoughts have weight, their feelings have form, and their voice, whether spoken, signed, typed, or gestured belongs in the world. They learn that they are understandable. And from that understanding grows confidence, curiosity, and identity.

But when language is missing, everything bends inward.

A Deaf child left without fluent signing at home learns early that their world often moves in sounds they cannot fully enter. They may smile, nod, or copy expressions to keep up, but beneath that surface compliance is a quiet ache, the ache of being surrounded by people who love you yet cannot hear you in your own language.

An autistic child without a reliable communication partner may learn to mask instead of connect, rehearsing phrases, avoiding meltdowns, hiding their sensory world just to survive. An ADHD child constantly corrected for talking too much, moving too fast, or thinking “out of order” begins to believe their natural rhythm is wrong.

Different experiences, same wound: your way of expressing yourself is not valid here.

That message seeps deep. It doesn’t arrive as a single statement but as hundreds of small moments, the ignored question, the impatient sigh, the laughter that says “you got it wrong again.” Over time, children internalize the silence around them. They start to doubt their own minds. They begin to believe they are “less,” not because they lack intelligence, but because they are unseen in the language of their heart.

This is one of the onion’s most painful layers. Here, the air stings because so many tears have already fallen. Countless Deaf children have grown up surrounded by sound but starved for conversation. Countless neurodivergent children have been told to “use their words” when those words were never shaped for them to begin with. What looks from the outside like quiet compliance is often grief, the grief of being misunderstood.

And yet, when language flows freely, the opposite takes root.

When ASL is given early and richly, a Deaf child begins to bloom. Their thoughts unfold through space and movement, their confidence grows strong in the knowledge that they can express, question, argue, and dream. When neurodivergent children are given the time and tools they need: visual supports, alternative communication devices, trusted listeners, their inner worlds burst open into light. The child who once seemed silent begins to speak, sign, draw, or type in ways that make perfect sense when someone finally listens.

Language, whether shaped by hands, words, symbols, or sounds, becomes not merely a tool but a source of pride. It says, “I exist. I am part of this world, and my way of speaking it matters.”

This layer reveals a truth that resonates far beyond the classroom: self-worth is not born from approval. It is born from recognition, from being seen and understood in one’s own language. When that recognition is withheld, the self begins to fade. But when it is given, the self-flourishes. A single moment of true communication, a signed story understood, a gesture returned, a thought acknowledged, can restore what years of silence have eroded.

To peel this layer is to realize that access to language is not a privilege, but a human right. It is not optional or extra; it is foundational to being human. Every child deserves to grow up knowing that their language, whatever form it takes is capable of holding their dreams, expressing their fears, and connecting them to others. Denying that access doesn’t just block communication; it fractures identity.

As we move deeper, we carry both grief and gratitude: grief for what has been lost through silence, and gratitude for what can still be reclaimed through language. Because every time a child learns to sign, to speak, to type, to draw, to communicate in their truest form, the world becomes wider, not just for them, but for all of us.

Next week, we peel again and find culture, the place where Deafhood and neurodivergent pride intersect, turning difference into identity and identity into strength.

~ A. Bret Cummens