Community-Curated Resources Are Here!
This means anyone can now submit helpful articles, guides, toolkits, or resources through our new submission form. Whether you're a student, educator, caregiver, or advocate, your voice matters here. Our mission has always been about building a more inclusive world together, and this new feature is one way we're making that happen.
G is for Gestures & Nonverbal Cues – Reading body language, facial expressions, and physical movement as core parts of communication
Movement, posture, facial expressions, vocal tone, and body orientation are all communication tools. Sometimes, they’re a child’s first language. Sometimes, they’re their clearest. And often, they’re the safest.
But in systems built around spoken responses—school testing, classroom prompts, even parenting scripts—these nonverbal messages can go completely unrecognized. Or worse, corrected. And when that happens, the message is clear: Only certain kinds of communication count.
We have to do better than that.
E is for Echolalia – Repeated Phrases Are Communication
If you’ve ever heard a child repeat a question over and over—or quote the same line from a favorite show all day—you’ve experienced echolalia.
And if your first instinct was to say, “I already answered that,” or “You don’t need to say that again,”—you’re not alone. Most of us were never taught what echolalia actually is.
Here’s the truth: Echolalia is communication. It’s not nonsense. It’s not defiance. It’s not a behavior to fix.
Echolalia is how many neurodivergent children make sense of the world, build language, self-regulate, and connect with others—especially when they don’t yet have the words they need.
D is for Demand Reduction: Honoring Capacity Through a Low-Pressure Approach
Demand reduction is about creating space for safety and connection by easing the pressure—not removing expectations entirely, but softening the way we invite participation.
When we lower demands, we honor a child’s current capacity. We shift from “How do I get them to do this?” to “How can I meet them where they are?”