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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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A Stronger, Unified Voice for Autism Professionals
I went to my first ABA conference recently as a newcomer twice over: as a psychologist who had spent a career adjacent to the field of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) without ever truly stepping inside it, and as the parent of an autistic son. As a psychologist, I built a multi-disciplinary...
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More Than Spoken Words: How DSPs Help People Find Their Voice
Everyone has a voice, even if they don't communicate through speech. Expression can take many different forms — from gestures and facial expressions to communication devices, pictures, and written words. When people with developmental disabilities are given the tools, support, and opportunities...
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The Visual Aspect of Increasing Communication Across Disciplines
Speech pathologists and behavior analysts each bring distinct expertise, yet their greatest impact is realized through integrated service delivery. Separately, these two provider groups apply principles unique to their respective science and discipline, but it is together, with support from...
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The Quietest People in the Room Often Have the Most to Say
Note: Names and identifying details have been changed to protect privacy. The phone rang on a weekend. On the other end was a young woman from one of our community-based programs. Just hours earlier, she had experienced every child's nightmare. She had witnessed her mother suffer a fatal...
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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...
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The Miracle Project’s Express Yourself Program Gives Nonspeaking/Multi-Modal Artists the Stage
The Miracle Project (TMP), founded in 2004, is internationally recognized as the first systematic, evidence-based program to use expressive and performing arts to improve quality of life and relationships for autistic individuals while challenging negative societal stereotypes through authentic...
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The Work Before the Work: Lessons From Co-Designing Assistive Technology With Nonspeaking Autistic People
"I still struggle to put into words what it felt like to finally communicate in a personal, voluntary, and unscripted way. I've described it before as a prison door opening, but it was even more profound than that – more freeing, more life-changing." – Lisa, nonspeaking co-author For...
