Connections Learning Center

08/23/2025

Friends, followers and all, I have a request.

One of my clients needs our help. Aaron has spent the last year developing the skills to communicate his thoughts and interests, and being able to converse with his family in ways they never thought possible.

Now Aaron wants to access that same kind of connection outside of the few hours a week he's with his practitioner (me) or his parents. We have an amazing college student to work with Aaron multiple days a week at his day program, but we need your help to keep them together while we work on securing other funding sources.

Aaron says, "I'm a 24 year old Autistic man whose voice comes from a letterboard. People haven't always seen my mind in its full display because they only viewed me through what they saw. Nobody could see that I could do and understand so much more than they believed. Letterboards have given me so much hope that I had never felt before. People never knew how awesome my mind was until letterboards. Nobody could see my smarts and so they didn't teach me as much as I wished for. Now with letterboards I have hope for my future."

ID: Aaron, a white presenting 24 year old man, wearing a maroon shirt and black pants, sits in a chair next to me, purple hair and purple shirt, holding a letterboard (26 letters, with bullseye color coding), while he is pointing to a letter

Check out comments to help, comment, like, share!

04/08/2025

Hello South Florida spelling and typing community! I want your referrals, but not for more clients (yet) - I want your professionals and therapists and teachers!!!! Please see below, and feel free to copy and share elsewhere.

I’m looking to build a multidisciplinary team in Central Broward. My organization, Connections Learning Center, focuses on providing communication support for education and community inclusion. Currently I am busy supporting nonspeakers and those who have unreliable speech with spelled forms of communication. I work in homes, schools, and day programs, but to best serve my clients, it's time to open an office again.

As an Autistic and ADHD professional, I work best on crip time* in a communal, neuro-affirming environment**. That’s where you come in. I’m looking for people in related fields, like OT, speech, PT, music or art therapy, educators, and personal trainers/fitness teachers. This is ideal for those who are either working independently, and want colleagues and community, or those who commute to clients part time, and would like to have a physical location.

My hope is to provide cross-disciplinary team support, both for us as service providers, as well as for the clients. Are you an independent provider looking for colleagues? Are you working in homes but want to have an office space too? Then please reach out!

For more information, you can contact me via DM, email rachel@clcflorida.org, or phone 954-393-4639.

* Crip time refers to moving at a pace that is best suited to one's current support needs and abilities. It is not based on ideas of productivity as value.

** For CLC, neuro-affirming includes but is not limited to: presuming competence, supporting autonomy and agency, respecting all forms of communication, a focus on regulation and respect - not compliance, and about building relationships and community

ID: a photo of me, on the beach, holding a high contrast sensory letterboard, with a client who is spelling while holding onto a fidget; second photo is of some of my favorite former co-workers - might you or someone you know be next to work with me?!?

10/07/2022

This is what IEP goals should look like!

Thank you Not An Autism Mom!

It took me four years, and we finally took out the word “prompts” from Jay’s IEP goals. 🎉

For context, an IEP goal might say this:

“Student will participate in whole group morning meeting for 15 minutes with 2 teacher prompts or less.”

or

“Student will spell 5 CVCe words with a maximum of 2 teacher prompts.”

The idea of fading prompts stems from behaviorism, with a focus on compliance. “Prompting” implies that the student doesn’t want to participate in the session or spell those words. It’s also tied to the overall goal of ABA: becoming “indistinguishable from their peers.”

Barf. 🤮

However… In most cases, what the school refers to as prompting… is actually direct support.

Many students (especially students with movement and communication differences) need the support of of a trusted adult to participate in school activities.

These students may need an adult who can anticipate their specific needs, help them understand instructions, co-regulate with them, help them feel safe.

This type of support is often needed for the student to ACCESS the school environment. 💯

In this case, “prompting” is actually a necessary accommodation, but we don’t use that word due to its negative connotation.

Instead, those two goals would be written this way:

“Given direct adult support as needed (and other accommodations), sudent will participate in whole group morning meeting for 15 minutes.”

or

“Given direct adult support as needed (and other accommodations), student will spell 5 CVCe words.”

That’s more better. 💜

[image description: a tweet that reads, The focus of every IEP meeting should be access. How can we help the student access all of the things?]

10/01/2022

Dear Friends,

I just presented this poem at tonight's Neurolyrical Cafe. I so love the warm community of Speller poets and their fans! I wrote this a couple of months ago as part of my ever-emerging sense of purpose and my growing awareness of disability justice. I have so much more to say about it, but not for now. I am so hoping it resonates with you!

Your Friend,
Danny

---
I AM GLOWING, by Danny Whitty

All the world is illuminated and illumination
And what I see is just so beautiful
And just one plane of existence
And I sense so so so much
Maybe more than a human body can cope with
And maybe my disability is faulty wiring
It certainly is faulty in many ways
And yet it feels so significantly significant
Like I am connected to something greater
For some purpose
And that generations before me
Can't have suffered and wasted away for nothing
And even if this significance is not fated
I will make it so.

09/30/2022

This will be incredibly informative!

This small group Zoom session is Sunday at 4:30pm EDT. 👇👇👇

You can register here:
https://calendly.com/notanautismmom/group-communication-toddlers

Come chat with me and Tiffany from Nigh.functioning.Autism about expanding communication options for your nonspeaking toddler! 💜

09/28/2022

Intentions are not unimportant, but we must look at our impact, within our relationships and our community.

09/11/2022

WE ARE HIRING!

● Do you think education is a powerful tool that everyone deserves?
● Are you creative?
● Do you think communication is a human right?
● Would you like to work with an Autistic led, nonprofit, neurodivergent affirming private school?

We are an Autistic led non-profit, soon to be private school, that believes that all Autistic students deserve a strong education, they just need the right fit. Here at CLC we are building something new - an educational environment where students are provided the supports needed to not just learn, but to express themselves - where sensory needs and motor differences are part of the every day.

If you like teaching and are passionate about finding solutions to tricky situations, we want you to come join us! We offer a dynamic environment with a supportive team of passionate coworkers. We are looking for teachers, OTs, SLPs, music and art therapists and other complimentary specialists. Reach out today!

ID: a golden background with text and word bubbles. In the center is the CLC brain logo. Branching off are 4 word bubbles, each with one of the questions from the beginning of the post.

08/28/2022

We very quickly assume intentions and reasons. But there is often so much more to consider.

You are not lazy! 🙅‍♀️

It can be so easy for us to call ourselves lazy when we’re not doing something. In reality, there are many reasons why we aren’t able to do that something. Fatigue, anxiety, depression, executive dysfunction, pain, loneliness, being unsure where to start, etc

Society teaches us that if we are doing anything other than being ‘productive’, then we are lazy. But this fails to recognise many aspects of human diversity, abilities and health conditions that impact our lives

This societal assumption can cause us to shame ourselves and to be unaware of the aspects of who we are that might be affecting us. Simply put, I don’t believe that ‘lazy’ exists. What does exist is mental health problems, neurodiversity, disability, chronic illness, etc

Shaming ourselves doesn’t help us to move forward, in fact it can make us even more overwhelmed. Please try to be gentle and kind with yourself 💜

[ID: An illustration of a sky with two rainbows in it and clouds. Text at the top of the image reads “you’re not lazy, you’re:”. Illustrations represent text, such as a battery for fatigue, cloud for depression, pills for pain, a flare for anxiety, brain for executive dysfunction, unsure face for afraid, question mark for unsure where to start, sad face for overwhelmed and speech bubbles for lonely.]

08/18/2022

Because learning and listening don't have a look.

The focus on educating autistic children has historically been on teaching them to behave neurotypically. An inability to do this easily is falsely interpreted as the child lacking cognitive capacity.

Many autistic children, especially nonspeakers and apraxic children, cannot do this. It may take them many years to learn the motor control that comes naturally to other children. This lack of motor control affects their ability to speak and make purposeful movements with their bodies. With understanding they can be coached to gain greater motor control, but it will not come from assuming they are incompetent for lacking it, or from punishing them for being unable to do this easily.

The focus needs to be on adapting their learning environment so they feel safe, accommodating their sensory and motor needs, and giving them the earliest possible access to augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).

They need to be taught literacy, numeracy, and educated with the presumption of understanding while they develop these skills. Assume radical competence. Assume language capacity, complex thought, and ability. Treat nonspeaking autistic children as fully understanding, capable little people.

Recognize their agency. Talk to them (not about them while they’re present), read to them, educate them, fight for them.

[image description in comments]

08/17/2022

It is never too late to learn, and grow.

I have watched children, teens, and adults, access deep, meaningful communication for the first time in their lives. And it's always amazing. It's life changing for them and everyone in their lives.

It's ok to regret choices we made when we didn't know better. To mourn the lost months and years. But then we take that energy and use it to grow. To share. To do the best we can with what we know NOW.

The only mistake is refusing to grow.

08/14/2022

Humans naturally enjoy learning. This doesn't mean we can or will enjoy everything we do all the time. But it does mean that our environments GEARED TOWARDS LEARNING should encourage joyful learning, rather than compliance training.

More un-learning here.

When you create a safe environment that focuses on regulation and collaboration, this term is unnecessary.

This 100% creates an environment of compliance.

Thank you, Not An Autism Mom for this truth.