If your autism advocacy doesn't include nonspeakers it's not what we need
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I don't really care what you have to say about autism at all if you haven't been actively seeking out and learning from nonspeakers.
And it's painfully obvious some of you are not doing that.
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Here's a few spots to start learning:
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Leo In Bloom is run by the wonderful friend, .
It is a beautiful collection of writing by nonspeakers, describing the world and their experiences in it.
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LISTEN (a brief video) and the toolkits that were made to compliment it were created by , and are a great start for folks who have no idea what it means to support nonspeakers
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okay here is some more work by nonspeakers you can learn from!
Akha Khumalo's blog has tons of posts that purposefully give insight into the experiences of nonspeakers
(he posts less often now bc he's busy but everything on here is so valuable)
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Akha (above) and The Zekwande foundation (led by Zekwande Mathenjwa; ) are both South African.
the foundation: zekwandefoundation.co.za
-- here's an article about the rise of nonspeaking advocacy in South Africa that features Zekwande:
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one of my favourite writers of any kind, poet and philosopher , has a chapbook here, and an upcoming prose one i'm hype for:
unrestrictedinterest.com/reading/p/lfr2
here's a great piece from her.
message: "We deserve to be heard, we deserve to be proud."
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speaking of chapbooks here is an entire website full of poetry by nonspeakers and unreliable speakers. you could cozy up and just read nonspeakers' poetry for days and days nonstop if you checked out all the poets who have books for sale here:
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how about a song?
"Dear Autism Professional" is one of my favourites. It's a brutally honest song directed at folks who make their careers off autistic nonspeakers.
it's by Damon Kirsebom.
Damon kicks ass and his lyrics here go HARD
Replying to
if you're down to listen to some music, here's an entire playlist of songs:
vimeo.com/showcase/93673
& An event THIS MONTH (Feb 25) packed to the brim with new tunes and material by nonspeaking and unreliably speaking folks, hosted by :
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Niko Boskovic, another advocate who I have learned a ton from, previously his stuff was mostly accessible via his fb, which is fb /nikoboskovicPDX/
but he has a recurring blog up now:
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Typed Words, Loud Voices, by "a coalition of writers who type to talk and believe it is neither logical nor fair that some people should be expected to prove themselves every time they have something to say. Read our arguments and hear us."
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a key shorter piece, which collected the perspectives of nonspeakers who are survivors of ABA:
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An excellent film abt Jordyn Zimmerman (who is now the chair of the board of )
brings viewers through "what people think of autistic nonspeakers" and how Jordyn was treated as a kid through how she & others gain access to communication:
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& accompanying resource pages for educators and others that go along with This Is Not About Me;
Toolkit to support nonspeakers:
thisisnotaboutme.film/wp-content/upl
The School-to-Prison Pipeline for disabled students:
thisisnotaboutme.film/wp-content/upl
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Another quick, key piece, abt what apraxia is like:
"Gaining language and having nowhere to lay it down still leaves me heartbroken. I am frustrated all the time because my words are RIGHT THERE.
Thank God I found another way to tell you this.”
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you will learn a lot about the world, and yourself, by listening to nonspeakers. and of course about nonspeakers and not being able to rely on speech.
the richness of the words and worlds i have experienced since listening properly have made life much more beautiful.
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Here's another compilation of autobiographical pieces by nonspeakers, which has reflection questions to help you really dig in after each chapter:
"Leaders Around Me: Autobiographies of Autistics who Type, Point, and Spell to Communicate"
betterworldbooks.com/product/detail
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thank you (kickass multimodal communicator - go follow xem!) who pointed me towards Explicit Literary Journal!
Showcase of art & writing by non speaking and semi speaking disabled writers/artists.
here's issue one :
explicitliteraryjournal.wordpress.com/2019/10/12/iss
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Replying to @FunFactsLulu
ty for this thread! you might also like explicit literary journal explicitliteraryjournal.wordpress.com/about-us/
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