An autistic teen was unable to communicate for 16 years. Once given the tools to speak, his parents experienced a revelation: Their son wrote a symphony.

• Jacob Rock, a nonverbal teenager with autism, spent 7 years learning to communicate with his iPad.
• Six months after typing his first words, he surprised everyone when he said he'd written a symphony.

Seated in the sixth row of the Alex Theater on the last Saturday night in September, Jacob Rock bobbed rhythmically in his seat, clicking his tongue as a 54-piece orchestra played out sounds he'd first heard in his head.

Jacob, a nonverbal autistic teenager, wrote the 70-minute concert that made its public debut in Glendale, California: a symphony called "Unforgettable Sunrise," representing his own sunrise out of silence.

It took seven years of persistent practicing for Jacob — who was diagnosed with severe autism as a toddler and has never said more than a handful of words out loud — to learn to communicate by typing with a single finger on his iPad. The massive leap forward came as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted lockdowns worldwide.

With everyone trapped inside, Jacob began to break free.

'My name is Jacob'

Among his first full sentences, read aloud by a digitized voice for the then-16-year-old using a text-to-speech app, was a declaration to his parents: "My name is Jacob. Not Jake." From there, the teen, who had previously communicated via pointing and grunts and was assumed by some of his teachers to have a low IQ with limited comprehension skills, continued to surprise them.

Just six months after introducing himself to the world, Jacob told his father, Paul Rock, that he had written a 70-minute symphony entirely in his head. Paul, a former record promoter and cofounder of the nonprofit Wild Honey Foundation, which produces concerts, film screenings, online fundraisers, and live stream events to benefit autism treatment, told Insider this moment was when a new two-year journey began to help the teenager express the music that was stuck inside him.

"We were like, 'Oh, my God, you have a symphony.' And he told us, 'Yeah, I'll describe it for you,' then he typed out a pretty vivid description," Paul told Insider.

Jacob's original description of his symphony, which was provided to musician Rob Laufer for help composing the piece, began: "It starts with piano bang, (long sample time that reverberates) and moves into: A series of bursts of cacophony on piano (5, 10, 30, 40, and 30 seconds a little over 2 min in total). I want soaring violins to rise out of the cacophony for 2 minutes. Dancing for joy. I want to hear the violins reaching for the sun."

"I am concerned that being autistic gave me the ability to hear music that mirrored my damn situation, so I felt the need to make the world aware of my plight as someone who always felt isolated in my silence," Jacob wrote in a program note to audience members who attended the concert.

Laufer, a friend of the Rock family, told Insider that Jacob's emotional intention behind the piece was immediately apparent. Still, it took the pair several months of trial and error before they fell into a rhythm together to bring the music to life.

"Once he began communicating, I was right away just so impressed with his mind and his experience and what he had to say," Laufer told Insider. "And as soon as I read his outline, his directions for the symphony, I was blown away at the possibilities, musically, because he already outlined instrument combinations that I've never heard of before — harp and bongo, for example."

Over the next two years, Jacob and Laufer would collaborate nearly every week, comparing Laufer's compositions to the musical directions Jacob, who cannot read sheet music, laid out in detailed, written descriptions. Eventually, Paul told Insider, Jacob felt as though Laufer could read his mind.

The pair co-created a score to Jacob's exacting specifications, featuring the "scary laughing" of flutes, strings "demanding sleep," and "manic horn met by soaring violin."

The silent boy

Paul told Insider he always knew his beloved son would do something creative. Though Jacob had so often been brushed off by people who believed he could, at best, be trained to complete "menial tasks" like laundry, his father said music has always been his obvious passion.

As a baby, loudly blaring the songs of the Beach Boys or Bob Dylan would soothe his crying. In his childhood years, Paul installed a set of wind chimes in Jacob's room to prevent the boy from leaving the house in the middle of the night to play with the set on their porch. Now a young adult, his collection of instruments includes bongo drums, conga drums, and a piano.

It's difficult for Jacob to plan and carry out complex or sequential movements. He also struggles with severe gastrointestinal problems — before he could communicate his pain through his iPad, he frequently resorted to self-harming behaviors when experiencing a flare-up.

"It was damn, damn satisfying that I could claim my terrific identity and show everyone my intelligence," Jacob typed in response to KQED when asked what it was like to finally be able to communicate in words.

Since Jacob began communicating through the device, Paul learned his son's internal world is so much more vivid than he could have imagined. Jacob started writing poetry, requesting to watch movies that he'd seen referenced in clues from "Jeopardy!" and taking on college coursework in school after previously being taught at a third-grade level.

"He told us that he learned or taught himself to read at age five — and all the other stuff he just learned by absorbing everything around him," Paul told Insider. He added that Jacob has a phenomenal memory, recalling even fuzzy details from his birth, when he was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. "He's this silent boy, just listening and hearing everything, and with a brilliant mind where everything that goes in never leaves. At one point he told me had five symphonies in his head at once and he was getting full."

A complex diagnosis

Several experts who specialize in the treatment of patients with autism told Insider that it's not uncommon for nonverbal patients to have their abilities wildly underestimated, describing patients with incredible memory, artistic abilities, and musical talent that can be overlooked as they struggle with other symptoms such as anxiety, aggression, and motor control delays.

Dr. Sharief Taraman a pediatric neurologist and associate professor in the School of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, told Insider that, neurologically, the systems that control motor development and language acquisition, as well as regulating the body in response to external stimuli are deeply interconnected. Autism can impact some or all of these systems and more, resulting in a wide spectrum of complicated medical symptoms that he said require patience to treat effectively.

"People talk about curing autism and stuff — that's not a thing. I think what we're trying to do is trying to take someone that actually has a lot of kind of superpowers and help those individuals learn how to use their superpowers properly," Taraman, who is also the CEO of Cognoa, a pediatric behavioral health company developing digital diagnostic and therapeutic tools for autistic patients, said. "I think the end goal is how do we help individuals enjoy the beautiful parts of autism and take the things that are causing distress for them and get rid of those and help them with those types of things?"

Jacob's deeply personal debut

"I just couldn't stop watching Jacob's expression. He was beaming ear to ear. He was making his noises because he was happy, but he was beaming ear to ear and he lasted the entire show. I've never seen that," Sheri A. Marino, who sat next to Jacob's family during the symphony's debut, told Insider. "That alone tells me so much about how important and real this is for Jacob. How impactful what he's been holding in his head and his heart is, and how impactful it was on that entire theater."

Marino, a speech-language pathologist and executive director of the Autism Healthcare Collaborative, has been a member of Jacob's medical team for the last 11 years. She told Insider Jacob's recent breakthroughs have primarily been due to his medical team's progress in stabilizing his gastrointestinal problems, reducing his seizures, and addressing his chronic lack of sleep. Marino said as he became more stable medically, he began to blossom emotionally and make huge advancements in his skill development.

Marino said the production was evidence of the years of unyielding effort Jacob and his parents have put forth to stabilize him. And the joy they're experiencing now that he is expressing the music locked inside him, she said, is palpable for Jacob's entire treatment team.

"Unforgettable Sunrise," now 19-year-old Jacob's first symphony, publicly debuted September 30 at the Alex Theater in Glendale, California, performed by musicians from USC's Thornton School of Music conducted by Daniel Newman-Lessler. The 1,400-seat theater was nearly full after a viral video from local news station KQED made its way around social media.

Seated in the audience beside his father, Jacob nodded his head along with the music he composed with the help of Laufer, occasionally making enthusiastic sounds as the horns blared and strings sang in an experimental orchestral piece of his own creation. The symphony received a standing ovation.

An orchestra in Cincinnati has reached out to Laufer and the Rock family to bring Jacob's symphony to Ohio. Laufer told Insider there are rumblings of interest to create a movie about the process. And Jacob has already begun work on his next project, a Mozart-influenced opera.

"I'm very glad you felt my latest work was worth your time and money," Jacob's iPad called out in a monotone voice to the audience just moments before his symphony debuted. "The symphony is my story, so enjoy being in my head for 70 minutes."