Every Word Counts Speech

03/07/2025

Autism is often portrayed as a dysregulated white male (or gifted and “quirky” white male) - but Autism is SO much more than this!!!

Autism occurs across genders, ages, races, ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and more! AND Autistic kids can be happy, friendly, successful, and all the things. It’s important that we recognize and include MORE than just stereotypes as all Autistic people deserve representation AND access to diagnosis and support.

07/27/2024

07/01/2024

This wonderful meme is from Rachael Langley's excellent page. I saw Lance McLemore's speech when he gave it at ATIA. He was powerful and poignant. Listen to our AAC users!

October is AAC Awareness Month!

Today's message comes from AAC user & presenter Lance McLemore.

"If you don't have communication, in effect you are invisible. It's like being somewhere between alive and dead. Communication seems to be an essential part of being human."

01/27/2024

A wonderful resource from NeuroWild. She has a great TeachersPayTeachers store, too!

10/27/2023

Wishing you a fun, happy & safe Halloween. Here are some gentle reminders for 🎃🍬💜

🧙‍♀️Check out our new article with a BOO-tiful Halloween-themed activity to help teach social concepts! 👻 bit.ly/40bszhN

10/25/2023

Choosing to give a child AAC (Augmentative and alternative communication) support does NOT mean you have to stop working on verbal speech. You can do both at the same time!

And while giving a child pictures, a device, or other method of communication can be game changing in allowing them the power of communication, NO- it will NOT decrease their verbal speech (and in fact it often increases speech skills!).

10/15/2023

New workshop for families of young children with social language delays and autism. Families, be empowered to help your child develop languge yourself!

08/11/2023

Have you heard of the 16 by 16 by FIRST WORDS Project?

Delayed or decreased use of gestures is often one of the earliest signs of Autism and first words breaks down some of the first seen gestures by age. It doesn’t mean kids have to have these gestures exactly - but these are some of the common early ones!

07/29/2023

05/24/2023

I wrote up this guide to help families new to AAC. Hopefully this is just enough to get your started and not too much to overwhelm. The first priority is to have fun! The second is to just try things and see what will connect. I hope that this guide will get you started on the right foot.

05/24/2023

No starter guide can say everything that you need to know. Hopefully, this is just enough to get you off on the right foot!

05/14/2023

This is a fitting reminder that communication at its core is connection, especially during May is Better Hearing and Speech Month.