Remarkable Parents and Advocates who Never Give Up

Parents and advocates of people with disabilities have a love-hate relationship with professionals because they don’t give up. photo credit: freeparking photo credit: Powerhouse Museum Collection I’m Thankful for Parents and Advocates You know the ones....

The Right to Communicate| We are the (new) Experts

photo credit: HikingArtist.com The Right to Communicate| We are the (new) Experts In the early 90s, Rosemary Crossley, Annie McDonald, Doug Biklen and others shocked the world with new ideas about people with the labels of severe disabilities and autism being able to...

Dream Plan for Aaron: 1981 (Part 1)

Build a dream and the dream will build you. R. Schuller. What is Normalization? In 1981 when Aaron was 6 years old, my friend Debbie Wetzel and I drove to Louisville, KY to hear Wolf Wolfensberger give a presentation on “Normalization” or “Social...

Wretches & Jabberers Review| A Jab to the Heart

I’ve been getting questions about Facilitated Communication. In the book Far From the Tree, the author Andrew Solomon interviews Ben Lehr who uses FC. Sue Lehr, of course, is one of the pioneers who works at Syracuse University and is a role model to us all. So,...

The Right to Communicate| Wretches & Jabberers

The Right to Communicate BACKGROUND The world is a hostile place for people who can’t talk with words. Many people don’t listen to body language, signals or even temper tantrums. They often see “behaviors” as something to extinguish instead of...