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Joseph Manekin's avatar

You clearly call into question the biases of parents using these communication methods. Fair enough. I wonder if you might be able to disclose any personal connection you may have to the world of autism or professionals working in this field? Also not mentioned in your article,is the motivation of a credentialing agency in ASHA that wants to protect the livelihoods of its paying members and the relevance of its field. I can tell you as a parent of a non speaking autistic 9 yo, speech therapy with multiple providers has not worked. Same as for countless others. Autism is a sensory motor disorder framed as a social-behavioral disorder. There is already so much subjectivity in practices such as ABA, which are quasi-scientific at best. There is more that can be corroborated by science in approaches like RPM than any other "methodology" applied by speech pathologists or ABA professionals. In fact, many RPM and S2C providers are certificated special education teachers, speech pathologists and occupational therapists who have been frustrated by the limitations of their field but whose practice has blossomed by incorporating letterboard informed practices.

There is currently research happening in labs at a few public universities that will further explore spelling methods and the importance of motor skills developed as a result.

I would encourage anyone who is skeptical about letterboard methodologies to be at least equally skeptical of those seeking to "debunk" them by calling into question ethics, or associating everyone who promotes LB methodologies with anti-vaxers and RFK Jr.

There are a few emerging best practices for working with non speaking, minimally speaking and not reliably speaking individuals. RPM or S2C and Spellers Method are amongst them. Regardless of what the naysayers say. I am confident that history will prove this to be correct within the next 10-15 years. Too many people are finding real results and much improved outcomes for it to be otherwise.

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