Are there any notable individuals who began life nonverbal …
Literally everyone.
I think you mean something more like "… still nonverbal at the age of 5+ … "
To that, I don’t know of any. But I’d bet there are at least a few. The world is a big place, and betting against the existence of an extreme outlier is usually a bad bet.
I’m going to assume you clicked and replied without reading what community you’re in?
This is an autism community.
Your comment essentially says “lol everyone starts out that way” then “other than that, idk”, which is not helpful when the OP is asking for examples in regards to autism/ND individuals.
You’re absolutely right about being “not helpful when the OP is asking for examples in regards to autism/ND individuals.”
However it is helpful to point out when someone phrases their question poorly.
Especially in a place known for people being quite literal minded.
I’m going to assume you clicked and replied, without understanding what community you’re in?
This is an Autism community.
EDIT: To be clear, the previous two lines were a bit of a joke. Using most of your same words back to you, to make a very similar point that you may have missed, while you thought I may have missed something.
At least I thought it was funny anyway.
However it is helpful to point out when someone phrases their question poorly.
Mate… the reason I specifically pointed out the community is because when you see a post asking “Who has the record for the fastest completion time in 2022?”, you might look at the community name, see that it’s a Mario 64 speedrun community, and infer the context. Oh! The fastest Mario 64 speeding completion time!
If someone goes in and comments something like “There’s many records for fastest times of things like running, biking, cars, etc. Maybe you should phrase that better to get an actual answer?”, people might say “Hey, you know this is a speedrun community, right?” because it’d be very clear what they were asking if you looked at the community you were commenting on.
tl;dr: OP did not post a poorly-phrased question. You simply misunderstood the context of their question. I had assumed your misunderstanding came from you not looking at what community you were in.
I have heard many times that Albert Einstein didn’t speak in his early years, so went to fact check it. Turns out it is not true, but I learned a fun fact that is hard to not share:
When he was two years old, his parents made him excited that he would get a little sister to play with. When she was born and he got to meet her, he was slightly confused and asked about the baby: “Where are its wheels?”
That might be a hard list to create. While I understand the spirit of the message, I think it would be difficult to objectively define “non-verbal”, then create a list of people that meet that criteria since they would have to publicly self-disclosed. I imagine we would mostly see this with autistic people that are advocates for the autistic community.
I believe Oliver Sacks was non verbal as a child until 5 or 6 and hated music until his teens, where he took an interest in medicine and became a remarkable neuroscientist.
Temple grandin