The following guest post was received today from Malcolm Gilderdale, the Interactive Producer for CBC’s Tonight with George Stroumboulopoulos. It’s in response to @GeeDee25 ‘s post about Carly Fleischmann, a remarkable and inspirational young lady.
I saw your article about Carly Fleischmann, and thought you might be interested in this video of Carly from our program. Carly suffers from autism. She is a spokesperson for autism awareness and the co-author, with her father Arthur Fleischmann, of ‘Carly’s Voice: Breaking Through Autism’.
Carly visited George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight on Monday to share her “Defining Moment”: the moment she discovered social media as a way to communicate with the rest of the world and overcome her autism.
The link to the powerful and informative video is below:
She was first introduced to social media networks Twitter and Facebook by her aunt’s friend. Prior to that discovery, Carly communicated with friends and family members by typing, but found “that because I type so slowly people would always cut me off, guessing or assuming what I was saying”. She says the first moment she used social media, “a sense of belonging and a feeling of being heard came over me [...] who would have thought an autistic girl would like social media?”
She now has tens of thousands of followers on both Twitter and Facebook. She is also the focus of interactive website ‘Carly’s Cafe’: http://www.carlyscafe.com/
George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight is Canada’s only nationally televised late night talk show. It airs weeknights at 11:05 on CBC TV.
Thanks,
Malcolm Gilderdale
This is go great that Malcolm responded and to follow up further, the PSA that I mentioned in my post is now available for viewing on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Et5Wfyr4E