Good things are happening in the Spellers & Allies Advocacy Network! We are announcing our long-term campaign to help bring more diversity to the spelling community. We are determined to get closer to our ultimate objective of providing communication access to all people.
Everybody communicates in a wide variety of ways. However, inequality impacts access to the tools and environments needed for reliable and language-rich communication. People with disabilities, especially those who cannot rely on oral speech alone to be understood, are often actively denied meaningful communication access.
The first part of our campaign focuses on racial identity, ethnicity, & communication access. BIPOC spellers are few and far between in the Spellerverse. This is due to structural inequalities, cultural differences, and need for better outreach and representation. Spellers & Allies Advocacy Network knows we must break down the barriers leaving many nonspeakers of color without reliable communication.
- Sharing information about the often life-changing communication modalities of spelling and letterboard use with local, national, and international organizations serving BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and low-income communities.
- Highlighting the perspectives of multiple marginalized disabled people and their families via social media campaigns and interpersonal connection building.
- Raising funds for nonspeakers of color to access Spelling to Communicate lessons & practitioners.
- Presenting about this campaign at events like Motormorphosis.
- The limited representation of (and limited resources for) people with communication disabilities who are members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
- Need for more Spelling to Communicate (and similar methods) resources in non-English languages.
- Socioeconomic disparities, geographic distribution of practitioners, and how all this impacts us as individuals, as a non-profit organization, and a social movement.
Take Action
- Fill out the campaign survey and spread the word! Download the MM25 CEC Flyer
- Join the Spellers & Allies Advocacy Network or share info about it
- Donate! Specific details about the BIPOC scholarship fund are forthcoming. For now, you can make a general donation to I-ASC.
- Attend I-ASC events
- Read, watch, and share the resources listed in the following Learn More section below.
Learn More
- A Boy Like Me by Hari Srinivasan | Disability Visibility Project
- I Am a Proud, Black, Nonspeaking Young Man With Autism. My Life Matters. | Justice Killebrew | The Mighty
- Being Nonspeaking and Indigenous | Sunna-Máret | he/him/she/her
- Why are you scared of me? – Performed poetry by Lateef McLeod
- MLK REFLECTION – Swarit Gopalan
- Autistic Reflections On Racism by Ben McGann
- Augmentative and Alternative Communication: How Becoming a User Changed My Relationships | Teen Vogue by Alice Wong
- Spell X features presenters from at least 10 countries. Go check out the 2024 playlist to see what nonspeakers around the world have to say
- Past I-ASC Campaign: Support Black Lives Matter
- #AutisticWhileBlack: Race, AAC, and The Right to The Voice of One’s Peers
- Reflection on the whiteness of spelling spaces and the disparities faced by nonspeaking people of color | Tiffany Joseph | Nigh Functioning Autism
- ADA 30 In Color – Disability Visibility Project
- Autism & Race / The Autistic People of Color Fund – Further Resources
The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida
Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong
How Can I Talk if My Lips don’t move by Tito Mukhopadhyay
