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Freeing the Mind: A Nonspeaking Autistic’s Case for Presuming Competence
Many nonspeakers are still locked in the prison of their own mind. Nonspeakers are underestimated because our bodies and brains are disconnected. Our minds work, but not with our body, so people conclude we are unintelligent. Apraxia is not well understood by parents, teachers, therapists, and the...
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The Power of Presuming Competence: A Nonspeaker’s Call to Action
I stop and think about what I went through as a young child all the time. On a scale of 0 to 10, so many of the therapies that overtook my life would get a negative number! It wasn't that the therapists were bad people; it was because the initial premise of the treatments was fatally flawed. How? I...
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Connecting With Nonspeakers: A Practical Guide
April traditionally brings showers, but in my world, it brings Autism Awareness Month – or is it Autism Acceptance Month, or is it Autism Action Month? It seems the verbiage changes from year to year. Awareness is good, acceptance is great, but action is the key to inclusion. For me, April means...
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Advancing the Rights-Based Inclusion of People Who Need and Use AAC: A Guide to Allyship
People often ask CommunicationFIRST for our recommendations for interacting with people who need and use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools and supports,1 including nonspeaking autistic people, autistic people who are sometimes able to speak, and people with other...
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Presuming Competence: What It Really Means and Why It Is Life Changing
Presuming competence is such a core foundational principle for people working with non-speakers to understand. It is the very first thing we talk about in our training programs and a topic we revisit in every coaching session. Parents, staff, therapists, teachers, and anyone else interacting with...
