How to Empower Autistic Non-Speakers w/JB and Jamison Handley

As beings, our primary purpose is to give and receive love, and few embody that as well as the non-speaking autistic community. However, for far too long, the community has been entirely misunderstood.

Non-speakers are often dismissed because they don’t communicate in a way many of us understand, but that doesn’t make them incapable of interacting. It just means the speaking community needs to get better at understanding. 

What can speakers do to assist more non-speakers to share their voices? What tools of communication already exist, and how can we learn more about them?

In this episode, the author of Underestimated: An Autism Miracle, JB Handley, and his son Jamie Handley share how the Spelling to Communicate process changed their family forever. 

 

Three Takeaways 

• Non-speakers, defined
  
  While non-speakers can say some words, their spoken vocabularies are incredibly limited. This has nothing to do with cognitive function and everything to do with motor disability.
  
  
  
• How to respond to a non-speaker
  
  Non-speakers might not communicate in the way that’s deemed “normal”, but they’re keen observers and often cognitively brilliant. They don’t need to be spoken down to, and chances are their understanding far surpasses that of most people.
  
  
  
• Advice for parents of non-speakers
  
  Spelling to Communicate, a system designed to help non-speakers, can be taught at any age. Any parent with a non-speaking autistic child should look into this life-changing process.

 

Guest Bio- 

JB Handley is the co-author of Underestimated: An Autism Miracle and the bestselling How to End the Autism Epidemic. As the father to an autistic son, JB is passionate about bringing awareness to the condition, and in addition to producing the documentary Autism Yesterday alongside his wife, he is also the co-founder of Generation Rescue, a nonprofit dedicated to autism recovery. 

Jamison Handley is an 18-year-old non-speaker. Diagnosed with autism at the age of 2, since going through the process of Spelling to Communicate last year, he is now able to fully communicate. A gifted mathematician, Jamison is set to graduate high school in 2022 and study neuroscience in college after that. 

To find out more, go to:
https://www.amazon.com/Underestimated-Autism-Miracle-Childrens-Defense-ebook/dp/B08SMR6CX9

https://www.facebook.com/GenerationRescue 

https://jbhandleyblog.com/

https://twitter.com/GenRescue?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor 

And to find out more about Spelling to Communicate, visit:

https://i-asc.org/