Proficiency Is Not a Prerequisite: Removing Roadblocks & Ensuring Access for Nonspeaking Learners

9 hours ago3 min read

This past fall, I had the incredible opportunity to present the webinar “Proficiency is Not a Prerequisite: Removing Roadblocks and Ensuring Access for Nonspeaking Learners” for the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE).

A screen grab of the MSDE Communicative Competence Webinar Trainings page showing the presentation on YouTube at the 53 minute mark. The title on the slide reads, “How do we shift our mindset around including students who have significant needs related to AAC use?”

Bullet points on screen read:
Culture shift: it’s okay to be a teacher who doesn’t know everything
Culture shift: build acceptance for school-based staff to acknowledge they have been wrong
Cultivating a mindset that ALL students belong. AAC users belong in classrooms with their speaking peers.
Proficiency with a device is not a prerequisite to inclusion.

There is a photograph of a young man near a window with an acrostic poem printed on top. The word down the side is AMPLIFY. The poem reads

Are you willing to admit how wrong you’ve been?
Maybe it’s time to
Pack up your assumptions that
Largely embody ableist
Ideas of how autistic
Functioning should mirror
Your neurotypical experience.

Lisa Mihalich Quinn and the sign language interpreter are both visible in boxes on the right of the screen. — The full webinar is available to watch on YouTube, links at the end of the blog.

As a former Maryland public school teacher, I often felt unheard and powerless in my classroom role. A big part of why I left teaching was the frustration of being unable to enact any sort of meaningful change from within my local school system.

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity I had to share with a large audience of school administrators what I have learned from so many of my students who are often the most marginalized, unheard, and underserved in our school communities.

This training focused on a critical issue in education: ensuring that nonspeaking learners have access to the same educational opportunities as their peers who use speech to communicate.

It centered the idea that if a student does not yet have a reliable way to communicate, we simply cannot make the assumption that they are incapable of learning grade-level content and move them to alternate learning outcomes while segregating them in isolated classrooms with lower expectations and fewer opportunities.

Many times, parents are guided toward making big decisions about their children's educational futures at very young ages. They are told that their children cannot succeed in general education classes and need the specialized supports that can only be offered in special programs. They are asked to sign documents saying that they understand their children will be instructed using alternate learning frameworks.

What they don't always understand is that this decision to remove their child from a pathway to a diploma is one that is very, very difficult to reverse. That's a longer blog for a different day.

The important point here, is that the decision itself is often being made with faulty information. Teams are acting on assumptions based on information about students who often lack reliable means of communication. And that means those learners should - and more frequently are - staying in inclusive environments with their peers.

In a world that often prioritizes speech as a measure of communication, it’s essential to break down barriers and create spaces where all learners, regardless of how they communicate, can engage meaningfully. This webinar emphasized strategies for educators and school staff to support students by:

Challenging traditional assumptions about communication
Creating inclusive and accessible learning environments
Utilizing alternative communication methods to empower nonspeaking learners

I am incredibly proud to be part of the conversation and the movement toward more inclusive, accessible education for all students. It’s a step toward breaking down those roadblocks and providing equitable opportunities for every learner to succeed.

You can find the webinar on the MSDE Webinar & Trainings page.

I'm also aware of some of the pushback that ensued following the webinar. Creating change in our systems is hard. It requires us to sit in discomfort.

Many times, it's the discomfort of recognizing that we have done things the wrong way, even though we acted with best information we had at the time. Change requires us to be flexible thinkers, to stop saying, "that's not how we do it..." and to shift to questions of "what if we tried..."

Just as there is no one-size-fits-all approach to teaching, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to dismantling broken systems and creating spaces that are supportive, welcoming, and just-right for nonspeaking and minimally speaking learners.

If you want to hear more of what I have to say about communicative competence, I hope you'll watch the webinar. If you want to talk more or think we can help you at Reach Every Voice, I hope you'll reach out.

a woman with chin length curly red hair wearing a blue cardigan and white shirt

Lisa Mihalich Quinn is the Founder and Executive Director of Reach Every Voice. She is also the Co-Founder and Curriculum Developer of Communication For Education. You can book online consultations with Lisa or any of our REV staff here.