Beyond Apraxia: Catatonia  Thanks to the increasing presence of neurodivergent self-advocates and their willingness to share their lived experiences, understanding about the complexities of movement differences continues to grow(1).  Apraxia, or the difficulty with executing volitional movement is not only more understood, there is now a general body of knowledge amongst nonspeakers, families, support providers, […]

PROMPT YOUR HEART OUT! By: Kelly Berg CRP Best Practices If you’ve come to Growing Kids Therapy Center in the last year for an out-of-town series of sessions, you’ve probably worked with me. Out-of-towns are actually one of my favorite things to do for a number of reasons. I love walking into a room on […]

Independence or Autonomy? By Alexandra Ponsica One goal that is often the main focus of parents, caregivers, and instructors of individuals with special needs is achieving independence. On the surface, it sounds like a fantastic goal. As a mother of twin 10 year old nonspeakers and spellers, it is certainly something I want my children […]

What’s the Purpose? By: Katlyn Billue Purposeful motor… we have heard the term but what does it mean? Why is it important? How does it help? To understand it we must first understand Praxis. Praxis is a smooth chain of motor actions based on a thought about something we want to accomplish. Guess what? This […]

    Being Held To A Higher Standard  By Gregory Tino It took me 25 years to find a way to communicate. It then took me another year to become fluent with my mother. Why does it take 5 minutes for a critic to decide that I am not capable of communicating my thoughts? For some unfathomable […]

College Bodies by: Anshil Kumar College is one of the most exciting and terrifying topics amongst the spelling community. We finally have an outlet of which we are able to display our intelligence, but we still are stuck in an impulsive body. Where is the balance between the two? What accommodations do we need to […]

Speech Mechanism Pt. 3 The Resonators: Shaping the Sound By Bryana Williams M.S. CCC-SLP   Today starts part three of our series on the speech mechanism-we’ve discussed air flow from the lungs in Part 1 and creating voicing in the larynx in Part 2. This discussion focuses on a couple of new areas that many […]

What is S2C?  If you’re following I-ASC on social media, you may have seen our new Trivia Tuesday posts, going back to basics and defining terms that have become so familiar to those of us who have been in the Spellerverse (the universe of all who spell and type to communicate) for a long time. […]

Thinking Through Dysregulation THIS GUIDE TO THINKING THROUGH DYSREGULATION WAS PREPARED FOR THE MOTORMORPHOSIS 2022 PARENT NETWORKING COFFEE BY LAKSHMI RAO SANKAR AND DEBBIE SPENGLER, I-ASC LEADERSHIP CADRE  When a speller is becoming dysregulated, it’s important to remember the common thread that dysregulation holds for all of us. Because when it comes down to it, the […]

Sexuality and Sex: Another Hard Conversation by Noah Seback Nonspeakers and sexuality. Nonspeakers and sex. Can these be mentioned in the same sentence?  Is this an oxymoron?  Did I read that correctly?  Yes!  I’m a nonspeaking autistic broaching the subject of sex and sexuality as it relates to our population. This topic is too rarely […]