Brookline, MA, June 21, 2025: In a remarkable story of personal triumph and beyond, 19-year-old Viraj Dhanda, a non-speaking autistic teenager from Brookline, has been accepted into the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as part of the Class of 2029.
Dhanda’s journey is one that defies expectations. Diagnosed with autism at age two, he was initially mischaracterized as intellectually disabled. For much of his early schooling, he was placed in special education classrooms where he was unable to express the rich inner world that would later emerge.
As reported by The Boston Globe, Viraj began using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) around the age of 10. By slowly typing sentences on a tablet—at first just a few words per minute—he gradually revealed an extraordinary mind that had been previously overlooked. He later told his parents that he had understood everything around him but was unable to show it…