S1E27: The Physiology of Non-Speakers | Talk Tracks

In this foundational episode, we explore the physiology behind the nonspeaking autistic population—unpacking apraxia, sensory processing, and the often-misunderstood physical behaviors of nonspeakers. Featuring insights from a visionary optometrist, a functional neurologist, and deeply personal stories from parents and therapists, this episode challenges outdated assumptions and invites listeners to rethink misunderstood conceptions of those with autism. It's a powerful reminder that what looks like disinterest or defiance may, in fact, be resilience in the face of profound neurological difference. _______ Join The Telepathy Tapes Backstage Pass https://thetelepathytapes.supercast.com/ to get ad-free episodes, never-before-heard interviews, behind-the-scenes documentary footage, and access to our private Discord community. This is your invitation to come closer. To help shape what’s next. To be more than a listener… to be a co-creator of this paradigm shift. So if you’ve felt moved, if you’ve felt seen, if you’ve felt the call, subscribe today and join us: thetelepathytapes.com. https://thetelepathytapes.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ky Dickens?

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• 0:33Ky Dickens?

  Hi, everyone. I'm Kai Dickens, and I'm thrilled to welcome you to the Talk Tracks. In this series, we dive deeper into the revelations, challenges, and unexpected truths from the telepathy tapes. The goal is to explore all the threads that weave together our understanding of reality, science, spirituality, and yes, even unexplained things like psi abilities. If you haven't yet listened to season one of the telepathy tapes, I encourage you to start there. It lays the foundation for everything we'll be exploring in this journey. We'll feature conversations with groundbreaking researchers, thinkers, non-speakers, and experiencers who illuminate the extraordinary connections that may defy explanation today, but won't for long.

• 1:16Ky Dickens?

  Today's episode is one I've wanted to make for a long time, because before we can understand the extraordinary things that non-speakers can do, like communicating telepathically or spelling with intention, we have to understand what's going on in their bodies and brains. And the truth is, most people have no idea. Behaviors like flapping, jumping, or avoiding eye contact are often misinterpreted, even by well-meaning professionals. But once you begin to understand the physiology of apraxia, which is a mind-body disconnect, and how it disrupts the connection between intention and action, everything starts to look different. We started on this episode literally right when the season ended, and we made it because so many parents and non-speakers have told us that it's long overdue.

• 1:59Ky Dickens?

  And instead of leading this episode myself, I asked our producer, Catherine Ellis, to take the reins. She's newer to this journey, and I thought it might be helpful to hear these ideas through the lens of someone who's just beginning to explore them, like many of you. This is an invitation to rewire the way we see, to not just understand how non-speakers move through the world, but why. All right, Catherine, take it from here.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  I started on this episode many months ago and my first call was to Katie Asher, Houston's mom from season one. If I'm ever looking to better understand anything about non-speakers, she's my go-to fountain of wisdom.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  I'm Katie Asher. I'm Houston's mom. When Houston was able to like start communicating to me, there was so much I didn't understand and he would communicate things that just didn't make sense. And it really, I was just, I had no perception or understanding or even perspective of what he was experiencing in his body. This is so important for us to understand is that we look at people and we automatically make the assumption that they're experiencing the same things we're experiencing. So then we make a determination or a judgment about what their body is doing based on what we're experiencing instead of what they are experiencing. And that's the disconnect. It's not just a disconnect

• 3:19Speaker 02

  between their brain and body. It's a disconnect between the judgment we're making based on what we're perceiving. And so first I had to understand like, how does the brain typically function? And why are their brains so different? Why do he flap his hands? Why do he have such a high pain tolerance? Why was he obsessed with water? Why was he putting his fingers in his ears all the time like he was in pain? I guess I was a research hound, right? I was a little detective, trying to figure all this out. What did these little pieces of information mean? And so I began to research and I started finding professionals in different fields and each one like offered a clue as to what was going on.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  So just as Katie had conducted her research, I started reaching out to different experts on the physiology of non-speakers with apraxia. I first spoke with Dr. Zalinski, an optometrist who works closely with many patients who are autistic at the Mind Eye Institute.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  I'm an optometrist and the sub-populations that I work with are people whose brains are not working adequately or whose brains are working differently from other people. We'll work with brain injuries, where people have to relearn things. We'll work with autism, where the brains are wired differently, different genetic disorders, people with dysautonomia, anybody where the visual input is not coming in properly, or the motor output is not going out properly, processing is different from average.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  I spoke with Dr. Zalinski to find out what's happening with the brain-ocular relationship in a person with autism, and how new studies and developments can help us better understand their perception of the world around them. I should also mention, she is truly a cutting-edge optometrist, who for 30 years before anybody else believed it, knew that there was a direct link between vision and hearing. She was keen to remind me that just because something hasn't been proven yet, doesn't mean it can't be. So Dr. Z, can you explain how vision often plays out differently for those with autism and apraxia?

• 5:22Speaker 03

  There's three kinds of eyesight. You have a subconscious eyesight that's keeping you safe, and that scans the environment. So if you're walking with somebody, then at a subconscious level, you're scanning the ground to make sure you don't walk into a hole, or trip over something. So that whole scanning ability of your periphery is subconscious. In somebody with autism, a lot of times, that subconscious isn't subconscious, it's conscious. And they're looking around in that far periphery.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  So it might be why they're not making eye contact with you, or seeming like they're just looking all over the place?

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. Exactly. And the second type of eyesight is a peripheral eyesight to set the stage to be what you're aware of. So for instance, if I'm looking at your earring, then the earring would be what my central eyesight is seeing details on. But I would see your face and your hair and the surroundings. So the second eyesight would be the surroundings, and that's called peripheral eyesight. So I scan the environment subconsciously. Something's interesting, and then I choose to put my attention on that interesting spot. And the peripheral takes over and says, okay, where is it? It's here. How do I point my eyes? Then you aim, and then you focus on details,

• 6:45Speaker 03

  called central identification eyesight. So you have this scanning, safety eyesight. You have the navigational ability eyesight, and then identification eyesight. So in autism... Typically, the autistic people are not using the identification and navigation system evenly. They're not used in tandem as a team. If you're reading, there's a paragraph and your side eyesight says, here's the paragraph. It starts here, it ends there. And then your central eyesight reads the word by word or phrase by phrase, but you see it coming. It's getting to the end of the line. I'm going back to the beginning of the line. And in autism, they're using either the peripheral, where is it pathway?

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Or the central, what is it pathway? And the safety pathway is at a more conscious level.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  The processing of all three pathways is not the same as in a neurotypical person. They don't typically use the central eyesight as a choice. And the central eyesight is a slower pathway. They don't need to use the central because they get enough information from the peripheral.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Okay, that's so interesting. So they're choosing to favor the peripheral rather than the central, since it takes more motor control to use them in tandem? So are they processing the visual information in a different way in the brain?

• 8:11Speaker 03

  So as far as what's going on in the brain, I tend to simplify it into the three different brains. It reflects the emotional and the thinking. I'm working on perception. And perception for communication would require four different inputs. You would have facial expressions and body language. Those are taken in by your eyes. And the body language is taken in by that peripheral system and the face, the farther one. And the facial expression is by a smaller periphery. So that's why we were talking about different types of eyesight. We have body language to see the whole body. You have facial expressions because you zoom in a little bit.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  And then you also have tone of voice and then content of words. So your auditory system also has kind of a background and the target. Those four things, you have a right eye and a left eye and a right ear and a left ear. So there's eight different sensory channels that all have to be synchronized for you to communicate easily. And to understand what the other person is saying and doing. So what I find with the non-speaking population is that most of them are either switching back and forth from just listening to what the person's saying, to just looking at their facial features,

• 9:33Speaker 03

  to just paying attention to, you know, how they're moving around, but they don't see it as a whole. Nor do they tend to watch the person's mouth while they're listening. So many, many of the non-speaking population look down and look away from the people talking to them. Because if they look and they try to look and listen at the same time, it's too confusing. Their brain's on overload and then they can't comprehend what's being said to them.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  What do you think it is different in the brain that's making that it that way?

• 10:06Speaker 03

  Well, the way I've learned it, it's a developmental thing, that it's the space around you. When I see autistic people, they have a particular spot in space that they're comfortable with, but they're not comfortable with the entire chunk of space around them. So I've made up a continuum and we call one example, one end of it would be like a floodlight mode. So if you went to a theater and there's floodlights on, you don't know where to put your attention. Stuff's happening everywhere. When the theater wants you to pay attention to one person, they turn the lights down, they turn the lights dimmer. And there's one spotlight on one person and then you know where to put your attention. So it's a continuum from pen light or spotlight mode all the way to floodlight mode.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  And the neat thing about the brain is it can turn the peripheral eyesight off and on and shrink it and expand it. And in the autistic population, that shrinkage and expansion of the space around them, that's not working properly. They don't have the ability to do it. It's it's a skill that's not been learned. People who have autism are usually stuck in the pen light mode and not paying attention to the floodlight mode. Which could have its strengths, really. It does. Autistic population have a lot of strengths. And that's the whole thing. It's like, it's a subpopulation. So like, when we see them at Mind Eye Institute, I'm not trying to change anybody. What we're trying to do is explain to them how they can better like,

• 11:36Speaker 03

  communicate with the people who aren't perceiving the way they are. So you have to, in order to communicate, you need to understand where the other person is coming from. And like, if you have a parent and a child, even a neurotypical child, the child cannot see the parent's viewpoint because they haven't gone through what the parent's gone through. Parent has to come down to the child's viewpoint. So with a non-speaking autistic person versus a parent or another person, the the autistic child is stuck trying to figure out what the other person is wanting. And they can't put themselves in that shoe. So if we could give them experiences by putting glasses on to change the way the environment looks,

• 12:20Speaker 03

  so that the taste of, oh, when my eyes and ears are connected, this is how the world is. Or when I'm coming from another perspective, this is how they might see me. Then they'd be more aware of how their behaviors are affecting other people. The glasses are designed for the peripheral section of the eye, as opposed to standard glasses that are designed to identify a target. We've had some of those children who all of a sudden start to be more aware. One was a verbal child, but it was funny, after they got glasses, they said to their mother, "Oh mommy, you have a whole face. I can see your eyes and your nose and your mouth at the same time." They had been like four years of their life just seeing a nose or just a mouth or just an ear,

• 13:03Speaker 03

  and moving around a lot to see everything. It's it's changing a brain process. It's giving them information of, if everything came in in an angle or from above or from below. Or it's magnified on one side but not the other, so it's slanted. It changes the person's posture, which changes the chunk of space that they're aware of. So for the autistic population, a lot of times we have to change the way their center of gravity is to make them lean back or lean forward. The identification, seeing a letter on a chart, that's one thing, but that's just one piece of your eyesight.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  That's not the important piece, because that's the slowest piece. And the eye exam designed to identify letters on a chart was designed before the light bulb was invented, at the 1800s. So we're still using that 160 years later. When it's not sufficient for the autistic population, or the dysautonomia population, or any sort of brain injury. There just has to be a change in the way eye exams are being done. Because it's only been in the last maybe 15, 20 years that it was known that their eye-ear linkages, they could just prove it. There's all these new discoveries, and yet nobody's changing the eye exam.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Okay, I guess the last thing I want to ask you is, what advice would you give to a parent or family member who has an autistic child or young adult, and they're having issues visually?

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Well, I'd first tell them that there's habits that have to be broken, and then a process of building new habits. So I'd tell them to be patient and take the time and understand that their child is not broken. Their child is just different. You have to break the old one, show them a new one, and have them rehearse the new one. And then they will want to go back to their old habit, because it's comfortable. So you have to also be cognizant of, well, what's in their comfort zone versus what's tolerant for them.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  So, you know, like, they might never like to go out to, you know, drag races where this car is making a lot of noise. Because the sound, they might have sound sensitivity. So, you can't change who they are as a person, but you can expand what they're aware of. That somebody who's in pen light mode, most of the time, when you expand to turn on the floodlight, you blur the central part. And they go, wow. Mm-hmm. It gives them that experience, but sometimes it's scary. Because you have, like I said earlier, an emotional brain that's guiding the thinking brain. And a reflex brain that's guiding the emotional brain. So, when you put different glasses on, you can change the body chemistry.

• 15:55Speaker 03

  And the chemistry changes the brain activity. I would love for my legacy to be to change the way the eye exams are. We're in the 21st century, and we're doing eye exams the way they were designed in the 1800s or 19th century. And for the autistic population and the non-speaking people, it's critical. I mean, it's absolutely critical.

• 16:21Ky Dickens?

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• 17:04Ky Dickens?

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• 17:48Ky Dickens?

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• 18:33Speaker 01

  Equipped with a better understanding of how someone like Houston is experiencing vision, I next hopped on a Zoom call with Dr. Cedric Noel, a functional neurologist, to learn about the vestibular system as a whole, which controls things like balance, spatial orientation, and eye movement coordination.

• 18:50Speaker 04

  My name is Dr. Cedric Noel. I am a chiropractor, and I have a certification in chiropractic neurology, which is also mostly recognized as functional neurology.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  And I've been in practice since 2002.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  Can you briefly explain the vestibular system?

• 19:11Speaker 04

  The vestibular system is a multi-sensory integration center that allows you to feel gravity, but allows you to feel movement of your head. It also takes in visual input. It also takes in proprioceptive input from your joints, from your body, that somatosensory input comes in. And so it allows you to feel your body and react to that. It allows you to see your environment and react to that. It allows you to hear your surroundings and react to that. It takes all of that in. Now, the reason why it can take all of that information and make good sense of it is because it also works closely

• 19:54Speaker 04

  with a very important region of the brain called the cerebellum. The reason why the cerebellum is so important, especially as you're mentioning in speech, the cerebellum is 10% of the brain's mass. But the cerebellum has 80% of all the neurons of the brain. Cerebellum,

• 20:16Speaker 04

  its job is to allow you to do things better and faster. And I'm way oversimplifying. But it does that in all aspects. Thoughts, emotions, for sure, speech, a tremendous amount of control there. Anything that requires fine tuning, fine control. And the connection with the vestibular system is that it's so foundational and it's so critical to our survival that if that integration of vision comes in, sensory comes in, motion, we have 10 motion receptors, gravity, if that all comes in and they're not coherent, you know, the information is conflicting from one system to another.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:02Speaker 04

  Then it's

• 21:05Speaker 04

  I think red flags go up immediately. A tremendous amount of energy is spent to try to figure out who's got it right. And you can't turn off the vestibular system because it's too powerful. And it's got very strong connections and control over the autonomic system.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  So what is going on with the vestibular system among people with autism? Specifically, those who are nonverbal. Is there a particular region of the brain that we can point to as functioning differently?

• 21:35Speaker 04

  I don't think we can say just one area is impaired. Because speech is involving all of those regions that I talked about. You know, you've got the forebrain, you've got the midbrain, you've got the hindbrain. I think we've got to make a separation too between if you can't vocalize any sound, then it's likely that the midbrain is impacted. It's injured. So if you can make sounds, then you know midbrain's okay. If it comes to synchronizing sound, you know, the rhythmic aspect of tones, that's more of that cerebellum.

• 22:16Speaker 04

  That allows you to take syllables and rapidly and fluidly, you know, turn that into spoken words and sentences and language. However, if it's more of that emotional intonation and sound, then that's part of the frontal region of the brain. It's an entire different section. And if you're able to make sounds, but you're not really able to say words, then you're looking at Broca's area. That's more of an expressive aphasia. I think that what's going on, in my experience, having worked with some of these cases,

• 22:57Speaker 04

  when we start with the vestibular system and we recalibrate visual, vestibular, somatosensory systems, and we organize them in a way that they work really well together. The expression is that these patients can feel their body. They can feel where they are. They feel grounded again. They feel connected to the ground again. And they can make sense of their environment. They know where their surrounding is again, and they know where they are. Now, if they've had thirty years of not being disconnected in that way, it's such a high-level priority problem

• 23:39Speaker 04

  that the interference it creates in all other systems is vast and overwhelming. If we can reorganize that as early as possible in life, it gives you the best chance of doing better. But even if we do that later in life, there's still a tremendous benefit. It just takes more work to try to make up for the lost function. I think one of the biggest problem in cases of autism, we could say, non-speakers as well, those long-range connections, you need the cerebellum, which is way back here, in the frontal lobe and everything in between to connect perfectly. Well, these long-range connections, they're impaired,

• 24:23Speaker 04

  but it doesn't mean they're not intelligent. I don't know for sure, but I think that what goes on is that we have areas in our brain that are not receiving the attention that they need. You know, we could say you have all these different brain regions and some have a tremendous amount of attention and others not quite as much. Or some are really efficient and others are not quite as efficient. And so when we look at studies on, we could take the blind, for example, as an example. If you are blind and you don't get to activate your occipital lobe, you know, the region of the brain that receives vision, what ends up happening is the other senses

• 25:07Speaker 04

  start taking over that region of the brain, right? They start taking more real estate. And the question is, is it that we have abilities that we are not quite tapping into? And those abilities are now being able to flourish. We're overdeveloping other regions.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  And how advantageous that can be?

• 25:28Speaker 04

  Oh, completely. I mean, you want to use that to your advantage. And that's the reality, I think, for every human being, is that we all have strengths and weaknesses. And some people have ultra strengths.

• 25:42Speaker 04

  And have, you know, greater deficits in other ways. But totally, you could, you need to, I think we need, that's what this whole life I think is about. We need to leverage our strengths. Maybe, I think it's important to build up our weaknesses too. We want to try to achieve some balance. So, and that's really what my job is, is I try to identify where are the deficits? And let, let's build those up. It's not to compromise the great qualities and strengths that, that, that a person has developed, you know, in spite of these weaknesses. But we want to try to restore balance because it's with this balance that we can really have, I think, a level of function in life that allows us to, to have better interpersonal relationships.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  And I think that's ultimately what we're all striving for. But with that being said, I think you're totally right. There are some things that we know in this world because of brilliant minds. You know, people that have had these high concentration of development and, and energy in parts of their brain that allow humanity to, or knowledge to advance at a point that it would never would have. I completely agree with you. So yeah, these people have a place in, a role in life that no one, I think, can do the way that they can. They have the ability to do things that no one can do the way that they can do it.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Here's Katie again. So combined with Houston's like visual impairments and his hearing having this acute effect on the rest of his body, the overload and underload of sensory information that his brain was trying to process. And then the lack of the sensory motor processing resulted in this vestibular and proprioceptive systems that are not functioning even remotely how they're designed to function. And this of course affected his ability to control the rest of his body. And all of this was in addition to this constant state of anxiety and addiction to the stimuli that he lived in.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  It actually took me so long to figure out what the original sensory source was because he was experiencing so many and he wasn't sure what everyone else was following. Over time, he learned, but that was just part of like the incredible way his brain works.

• 28:09Ky Dickens?

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• 32:00Speaker 01

  Katie's search to find Houston the treatment and care he needs is ongoing. But one program Katie mentioned sounded so amazing, I had to get on the phone with them.

• 32:08Speaker 05

  My name is Benjamin Keeling. I'm an occupational therapist.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  As a part of his occupational therapy, Katie's been taking Houston to Sawdust Occupational Therapy, a program that teaches individuals with autism woodworking skills.

• 32:21Speaker 05

  We work with life skills and vocational skills for children and young adults who need a little assistance, using those skills to regulate themselves or build confidence.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Will you tell me a bit about the experiences you've had working specifically with the nonverbal population?

• 32:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's it's some of the most rewarding work that I've ever done and I know that I'll continue to do. This population, I think, obviously, for those who've been listening to your previous episodes and all of that, understand that they have so much to offer and oftentimes are so overlooked. And I think that's one of the reasons why I enjoy working with them as much as I do, because every day I learn something new and see something amazing. You know, when I first started, I feel like it's pretty common in the medical model to try to just stick with, you know, we're only going to do small, fine motor tasks, we're going to try to work where you're at and that's it. I have a lot of family members who have myotonic muscular dystrophy and I've kind of seen when

• 33:22Speaker 05

  someone isn't, you know, given the opportunity to meet their best potential, what that does for for an individual. So it's a big passion of mine to make sure these individuals are, I assume, competent in every way, you know, I don't assume they can't do anything, you know, I assume that, you know, they're going to be able to do it day one and then we see where we're at, you know, and I'm always amazed, in particular, you know, you brought up Katie and Houston, something that really blew me away and kind of made me realize, you know, this young, this young man has a lot to offer and has just some incredible skills. We, we, day one, had him come in and I was talking about, you know, like our woodworking

• 34:03Speaker 05

  and what we're going to do and all of this stuff and his mom's like, you know, Houston is really talented, he has a lot to offer, a lot of people don't really see that and I want him to be able to kind of show you kind of his knowledge and where he's at. And

• 34:19Speaker 05

  He spelled to me kind of what he wanted to do, what motivated him. So we started off making these prayer boxes and each prayer box meant something to him and to a very specific person. And, you know, he was one of my first interactions with using spelling as a mode for communication. And, you know, Katie was explaining it to me and he started telling to me, you know, I really love this wood. It's called Paduk. It's this red wood and we had gone over it and showed it to him. So she's like, it really speaks to me. The, the energy it gives off, it's very calming and grounding. And I thought that was very interesting, you know, because every wood does have a different

• 35:01Speaker 05

  kind of feel to it, but I had never thought of kind of the idea of grounding aspects to it. And I was like, okay, that's pretty cool. I'll go find some Paduk. And he literally went up to a pile of sawdust. I mean, I'm talking, when I say pile, I'm saying like size of like a 10 gallon bucket of sawdust. That's just your typical pine. He sticks his hand into this pile of pine and pulls out a piece like this big of Paduk. And he was telling me that-

• 35:33Speaker 01

  And just for the listeners, that's like the size of a coin.

• 35:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, a size of a coin. It says, and it was able to pick up on the energy of that wood through that pile of sawdust. And, and I'm telling you, he came in without knowing, and like that, we used that Paduk maybe two weeks ago. I mean, it was under my table saw. I mean, it, he, and he was able to pick it out when we walked into my wood shop. And at the time, my company, we were operating out of my personal wood shop. So it was kind of cramped. So there's no way he would have, like, from just a visual standpoint, like neurotically, I'd be able to look at that pile and be like, there's this tiny piece of, of Paduk, but he's able to pick it up. And it was at that moment, I'm like, you know,

• 36:17Speaker 05

  There's something to this. There's like, these guys, I mean, they have so much to offer. And I think we're doing them a disservice by discounting what these skills are. And I was like, all in.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Well, it feels like this population has been greatly underestimated for a long time. And one of the biggest issues that we as a society have, I think, is trying to get them to conform to the way we've been living. Instead of what you're saying is meeting them where they're at, which it sounds like you do in your therapy.

• 36:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, and I see a huge therapeutic benefit to that. And honestly, the, the relationships I've built with these young men and women, just meeting them at their level, you know, meeting them where they're at. It's just amazing. Yeah. I mean, they have so much to offer. And honestly, out of the box thinking, some of the most creative projects we've ever made are with my guys who spell. And who would be typically considered, you know, they say nonverbal, but it's really non-speaking. Because these individuals can verbalize and they can communicate. It's just from a motor standpoint, the oral motor function of being able to use those motor functions because of apraxia.

• 37:30Speaker 05

  Makes it, unfortunately, it makes people assume less of their ability than they actually have. I mean, they, I have a feeling with the apraxia, that's the biggest reason why we're seeing non-speakers. You know, I mean, these, these guys are brilliant. They just, from a motor standpoint, have a difficulty being able to articulate what they're trying to say.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  I'm glad you brought up the motor side of things, because I think there's a lot of confusion on what's really going on. When, like, let's say you see an autistic individual in the store and they're spinning or bouncing or flapping.

• 38:05Speaker 05

  You'll see a lot of rocking or spinning or flapping or movement. That's comes from a neurological basis. It's a sensory need. So we, our body's broken up into several different senses. When it comes to movement, rocking, the big ones are vestibular input, proprioceptive input and visual input. I put those big three together. Proprioceptive is basically your body, where you're, you're, you are in your, in space. So your body space, your spatial reasoning. So.

• 38:38Speaker 05

  You have your proprioceptive, which I say is like your neck down. And then your vestibular system is your intraventricular canals. There's three rings in each ear. And that kind of tells you where your head is in space. And then your visual, obviously, is through your eyes, through your optical nerve. So when you see a young adult that's rocking, a lot of times what they're doing is they're trying to ground themselves or center themselves through vestibular or proprioceptive input, sometimes both. It's not uncommon to see, maybe, a lot of times the public will call it like hand flapping, where it'll be like a flap in front of their face or around their body.

• 39:17Speaker 05

  So getting this kind of repetitive motion is getting their sensory system, their neural system, regulated and centered to be able to function in whatever setting they're at. And I think that's an important thing to realize is these young adults and individuals are in need of such a rich sensory input to just be able to regulate themselves in their daily lives. I try to tell individuals who are not familiar with the neurodiverse community, if you've ever been anxious and you're sitting at a chair and you're bouncing your leg, that's the same thing that our young adults are doing. You know, you're regulating yourself through proprioceptive motion.

• 39:59Speaker 05

  My big thing is wanting people to realize that it's okay to communicate with these individuals in public. You know, they're just like you and I. You know, they want that social connection. Some of my guys that I see, we call them apprentices at Sawdust. I mean, they're close friends of mine and there's a connection there. It's just knowing, kind of, you know, everyone's intricacies. You know, everybody has needs that are different. And I think something important to touch on, too, is kind of... Things that we can do to kind of assist the adults in public, you know, they don't want to be talked to like they're children because they're not, you know, they they're just as adept as us. They just need a different way of communicating.

• 40:43Speaker 05

  I think why woodworking is so motivating for our guys is the amount of vestibular and proprioceptive and tactile input you get through working. Everyone wants to have a place in in this world. Everyone wants to be able to showcase their skills. And, you know, giving them an opportunity to express themselves in a safe environment that doesn't judge based off appearance, based off, you know, verbal skills, based off what you see on the cover.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Houston was called lazy. He was called low functioning. He was called uninterested in being part of community. And they have no

• 41:30Speaker 02

  business putting these labels of intent when they have no idea what they're experiencing.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  He was given a IQ of forty five. And those tests are an insufficient measure of intent, of intelligence, of desire. And they should never even be a part of education. Because what they do is they set out to determine who's worth providing resources to.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  One last closing thought from Katie.

• 42:07Speaker 02

  I'm hoping to bring empathy back. I'm hoping for love and curiosity and all the things that actually make us wonderful as human beings. You find truth from curiosity, from hope, from love. And you believe in people. And then guess what happens? They perform. My son is not incredible because of his abilities. He's incredible because he had to maintain hope while he was denied every single human right and dignity. He's incredible because he has the courage to make the world confront the truth about what they have done to others like him.

• 42:42Ky Dickens?

  My hope with not just this episode, but with all the attention on non-speakers in general, is that behaviors once labeled as disruptive, or defiant, or detached, are revealed to be acts of regulation, and survival, and even resilience. Because what looks like disinterest may be sensory overload. Or what seems like non-compliance may be a body out of sync with intention. We've spent decades, literally decades, trying to force non-speakers to conform to a neurotypical world, instead of adapting that world to meet them where they are. It's time we see the brilliance beneath the surface. It's time to stop denying non-speakers their dignity, their education, and their basic human rights, because we failed to understand the mechanics of their bodies.

• 43:23Ky Dickens?

  Justice starts with curiosity, and then with listening, and then with rethinking everything we thought we knew. So, thank you for your curiosity and for listening.

• 43:34Ky Dickens?

  That's it for this episode of The Talk Tracks, but new episodes will now be released every other Sunday, so stay tuned as we work to unravel all the threads, even the veiled ones that knit together our reality. Please remember to stay kind, stay curious, and that being a true skeptic requires an open mind. Thank you to my amazing collaborators. Original music was created by Elizabeth P.W., original logo and cover art by Ben Kendor Design, the audio mix and finishing by Sarah Ma, our amazing podcast coordinator Jill Pachaznik, the Telepathy Tapes coordinator in my right hand, Catherine Ellis, and I'm Kai Dickens, your writer, creator, and host. Thank you again for joining us.