Jenn Jordan

Some say it’s not real.

Well, they’re wrong.

And these two guys are proving it.

There is a lack of understanding. Of autism. Apraxia. Unreliable speech. Impulse. Loops. What presuming competence really means. What nonspeaking autistics and apraxics are actually capable of.

And there are huge misconceptions and a ton of misinformation out there about what spelling is.

How it works. Why it works. What communication partners do.

It’s all explained in this video. By two young men who live it every single day. There’s no one who can explain it better than someone who experiences it.

They do it better than any doctor, therapist, educator or parent ever could, so they are the ones we need to listen to.

And if you’ve ever wondered what it must be like for non-,minimal and unreliable speakers to be mislabeled, misunderstood and underestimated THEIR ENTIRE LIVES…they explain that too.

Join us at Autism Beyond Expectations to see and hear what Jakob and Andrew have to say.

They’ve gifted us all with this MasterClass.💙

THEY SAID THEY WERE INTELLECTUALLY DISABLED. THEN THEY STARTED SPELLING. They told us they couldn't speak. They never said they didn't have anything to say.Welcome back to Autism Beyond Expectations. In this special 50-minute pres...

Those neverending loops.

Jakob’s speech is unreliable. He talks non-stop, but it’s mostly nonsense. We have the same conversations over and over, sometimes hundreds of times a day.

He asks questions or makes statements that require specific responses. Sometimes they’re stressful and my predictable responses calm him. Sometimes they’re silly and he just thinks it’s funny.

In no way are these conversations an indication of his understanding, intellect, or capabilities.

They are loops. And every unreliable speaker I know has them.

They talk about the same topics over and over. They ask questions that they’ve asked a million times and absolutely already know the answers to. They tell the same stories again and again.

It’s part of the apraxic brain-body disconnect. They have so much they’re trying to say, but the same words, phrases, and sentences keep falling out of their mouths.

It’s maddening for them.

Especially when people take their loops as their truth. And then treat them like they’re a much younger, far less capable version of who they actually are.

Understanding loops, and their purpose, has changed the way we see them and respond to them. And that has made a huge difference in Jakob’s existence.

It’s made our lives calmer, less exhausting, more loving, and overall just easier.

And who doesn’t want that?

We talk about loops in our first long form video on our new YouTube Channel, Autism Beyond Expectations.

Really really great stuff.

Here’s a clip!

Join us there for so much more…💙

My Speech Is Not My Truth! In this short you get a peak at into an incredible weekend at Family Camp at Autistically Inclined. It’s a camp for people with autism and apraxia who use te...