Noah Dudas is a little boy who suffers from autism, and like many children in his situation, he struggled to adapt at his former school. That’s why his parents Lauren and Dan sent him to a specialized school, and thankfully, he started to thrive there immediately thanks to the efforts of his teachers and classmates. Noah even found a best friend who was utterly devoted to him and would never say a bad word about him.

Avon East Elementary School in Ohio was the perfect fit for Noah largely because of his second grade teacher, Michelle Szczepanski. Lauren and Dan said that Michelle had a special bond with her students and that Noah liked her right away.

One of the things Michelle has in her classroom is a “shout-out” bucket where kids can take a shout-out card and write compliments for their classmates which she would then read out to the class. Early on, Noah’s classmate Declan Walsh wrote a touching shoutout for him.

“For teaching me that being different never matters,” the compliment for Noah read.

Noah was stunned when Declan wrote this for him, as nobody had ever told him that before. This inspired Noah to create a dance video as a thank you to Declan and the rest of his classmates.

After he dances in the video, Noah says, “You guys just stole my heart.”

Noah is hoping that the video will show the world the importance of kind words, which he says can completely turn someone else’s life around. Find out more about this in the video below!