Communication 4 ALL

There are people who have been underestimated for far too long. This is an opportunity to change that, and to be part of the first group leading the way. ☀️ This summer, C4A is launching a 10-week paid advocacy role for nonspeakers and people with minimal speech, people who have a direct stake in expanding communication access and civil rights protections. This is a working role. You will join our team to advance communication access, support policy and systems change, and help build a network of people ready to take action in your state. This isn’t generic advocacy. This is about ensuring people have access to the communication methods that work for them, and the rights that come with being heard. Over 10 weeks, you will: 🔠 Contribute to active advocacy efforts focused on communication access and civil rights 💭 Create and share your perspective to influence how people are understood 👥 Connect with local leaders and decision-makers 🤝 Recruit and activate others who are ready to take action 📈 Help grow a national network of advocates driving real change 🗓️ Timeline and Logistics: Application Deadline: May 20, 2026 Program Dates: June 15 – August 21, 2026 (10 weeks) This opportunity is open to spellers and typers 14 years of age or older who are legally eligible to work in the United States. This is a paid role where your time and energy really matter. Plan for about 5 hours per week over the 10 weeks, which is what the stipend is based on. Many people choose to do more as they get into the work, and that energy is always welcome. Those who lean in will leave with stronger skills, meaningful connections, and a real role in advancing communication access as part of a growing civil rights movement. We’re looking for people ready to show up, follow through, and use their voice to help expand access for others. 🔗 Apply at the link in our bio. #communication4all #autism #disability #hiring #nonspeaking

🧾 Evidence-Based Practice ⭐️ Elizabeth declares: EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE IS USED AS A WEAPON AGAINST NONSPEAKERS TO DENY US OUR RIGHTS, AND IT IS A FALSE CLAIM. EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE HAS THREE COMPONENTS: CLINICAL EXPERTISE, PATIENT PREFERENCE, AND RESEARCH. WE HAVE ALL THREE AND DEMAND TO BE CONSIDERED EVIDENCE-BASED. 🟰 Evidence based practice has THREE equal parts, not one: 1️⃣ Internal and external research 2️⃣ The clinician’s expertise 3️⃣ The client’s own values and lived experience; which keeps getting left out This is ASHA’s own framework. All three. Equal weight. That is not our opinion, that is their official framework. ☝️So when someone tells you text-based communication is not evidence-based, ask them which pillar they are standing on. They are not practicing evidence-based care if they are ignoring what thousands of spellers are telling us works. Ignoring what thousands of spellers say works = practicing one third of evidence based care. 🔒Evidence-based practice without the client’s voice is not science. It is gatekeeping. 🤲 Save this. Share it with every provider in your life. 🧑‍🏫 Teach your nonspeaker to type to communicate with C4A Academy, our FREE program: /c4a-academy/ (link in bio!) Video Description: Elizabeth wears a Communication 4 ALL T-shirt and types on a keyboard that Ginnie holds. Her laptop screen reads: “Evidence-based practice is used as a weapon against nonspeakers to deny us our rights, and it is a false claim. Evidence-based practice has three components: clinical expertise, patient preference, and research. We have all three and demand to be considered evidence-based.” As Elizabeth continues to type, screenshots of the studies she references are shown, along with footage from the eye tracking study, photos of Dr. Elizabeth Torres and Elizabeth and Ginnie presenting on a stage, and photos of 5 typers typing with their communication partners, with text “We are the evidence.” Elizabeth and Ginnie hug at the end, with text: “Can’t argue with science!” #CommunicationIsAHumanRight #MyVoiceMyChoice #AutismAction #SpellersFreedom #C

🚨 @patfahy46 We urge you to restore the NY Communication Bill of Rights to version S7792B! Reverse the latest amendment (S7792C), and restore the bill to its original intent! #CommunicationIsAHumanRight! ✉️ This is an open letter to Senator Patricia Fahy & the Disability Committee from Helen Keller’s family members, who we are grateful to be in relationship with. Helen Keller (1880-1968) was a DeafBlind disability rights activist, author, and lecturer. 🔗 Send an email to Senator Fahy at the link in our bio. Dear Senator Fahy & The Disability Committee, My name is Margot Keller. I’m writing to you with my daughter, Brooks Hamilton, as living relatives of Helen Keller. We urge you to oppose the amended version of Bill S7792 and restore it to its original intent. The recent amendments weaken protections for the very people this bill was meant to support. They fail to reflect how communication is often learned and accessed by nonspeakers. Our aunt, Helen Keller, did not communicate independently at first. She relied on her communication partner, Anne Sullivan. Without Anne’s support, the world may never have heard Helen Keller’s voice. Today, countless nonspeakers face a similar barrier. For many, communication is not autonomous at first; it is built through support, trust, and partnership. These amendments risk closing the door that opened Helen Keller’s world. Please consider what is truly at stake. How many capable, brilliant individuals might remain unheard if communication access is restricted? How many contributions might be lost? What would the world have lost if Helen Keller never learned to communicate? New York has the opportunity to protect nonspeakers’ rights. By restoring this bill to its original form, you can affirm every person deserves the right to communicate, by whatever means allows them to be heard. Listen to nonspeakers. Give them the same chance Helen Keller was given. Thank you for your time and leadership on this issue. Respectfully, Margot Keller & Brooks Hamilton VD: Photos of Helen Keller and many nonspeakers throughout. Subtitles accompany spoken text. #MyVoiceMyChoice #AutismAction #Communication4ALL #SpellersFreedom

@abigail.newbold2011 is a 14-year-old minimally-speaking typer who has plans to go to college. Abby is not alone: there are tens of thousands of nonspeakers and minimal speakers like her just in New York State, and hundreds of thousands in the United States, and millions around the world; thinking, feeling people who need access to communication methods that work for them. Abby is also one of the most badass advocates for communication rights we know. So badass, in fact, that she's now on a billboard calling out Senator Fahy in her own district for compromising the Communication Bill of Rights and continuing to ignore spellers and typers. 🤲 Here are 2 ways you can support Abby and all nonspeakers in New York right now: 1️⃣ Tell NY Senate leadership and the Disabilities Committee to intervene by introducing the correct Communication Bill of Rights that matches Assembly Bill A7363C 2️⃣ Donate to our GoFundMe to keep Abby's billboard up for the rest of the legislative session. We are only about $1,520 away from our goal! 🔗 LINKS IN BIO for both! 🙏 Thank you to everyone who has contacted the NY Senate, donated, or shared already. Video description: "Abby's Story" is on top and an NBC News banner that reads "FIGHT OVER NONSPEAKERS' RIGHT TO COMMUNICATE" is on the bottom, with open captions. Abby and her mother Andrea talk with a news reporter as b-roll of Abby typing on an iPad, as a child, and typing "mommy" on a laminated letterboard are shown. #CommunicationIsAHumanRight #CommunicationBillOfRights #nonspeaking #spelling #typing

Our Executive Director Elizabeth wrote an op-ed with Marisa McClinton about how care workers understand the importance of accessible, effective communication, and what this means for New York's Communication Bill of Rights. In short, communication access makes both nonspeakers' and care workers' lives and jobs safer. 🔗 Read the full piece in Empire Report at the link in our bio! #CommunicationIsAHumanRight #CommunicationBillOfRights #Spellers #Typers #Nonspeaking

🔠 Communication Is a Human Right — Help Us Be Seen! We need about $2,250 more to keep up a high-visibility digital billboard in Fahy’s district for the rest of the legislative session, demanding she reverse her toxic amendments. 🔗 LINK IN BIO to donate, or scan the QR code on the second slide 🙏 Last year, New York’s Assembly unanimously passed a bill protecting the right of nonspeaking people to communicate. Bipartisan. Common sense. Basic human dignity. Then Patricia Fahy, Chair of the Disability Committee in the Senate, gutted it. Based on pressure from special interests, The Chair of the Disability Committee added two words — “autonomous” and “validated” — undermining her own bill and putting thousands of nonspeaking people at risk of losing their only reliable way to communicate. Enough is enough. As Disability Chair, Fahy is accountable. Instead of protecting vulnerable people, she sided with special interests and weakened a civil rights bill that had unanimous support. We are calling on her to reverse her harmful amendments and restore the original bill. Every dollar goes directly to the billboard: Six weeks, prime Capitol location, maximum visibility. If you believe everyone deserves to communicate any way they can and no politician should be able to take that human right away — act now! Donate any amount you can, even $10. Donate more if you can, and please share with your family and friends. WE NEED TO TELL THE WORLD ABOUT HOW THE CHAIR OF THE DISABILITY COMMITTEE HAS BETRAYED DISABLED PEOPLE AND REMIND LAWMAKERS THAT YOU DON’T MESS WITH AUTISM FAMILIES — WE NEVER GIVE UP. Because once a nonspeaker can communicate, taking that right away is illegal and immoral. With gratitude, Elizabeth Bonker Executive Director Communication 4 ALL #CommunicationIsAHumanRight #CommunicationBillOfRights #Spellers #Typers #Nonspeakers

Our friends Alex and Judy from @mouthtohandlearningcenter were recently featured on @nbcnews ! Alex says "IT IS TORTURE" to not be able to communicate. Thankfully, Alex learned to type to communicate at the age of 25, and is now majoring in math in college. (It's never too late!) In Alex's words, "TO BE ABLE TO TALK IS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT." We couldn't agree more, Alex. But unfortunately, the human right to communication is under threat in Alex's home state of New York. NY State Senator Fahy wants to make more amendments that weaken and reverse the Communication Bill of Rights even more than her last ones. ❗️ We need to urge Senate Leadership and the rest of the Disabilities Committee to make RIGHT the Communication Bill of Rights. (Really, how do you mess something like this up?!?) There's absolutely no excuse. The correct version of the Communication Bill of Rights passed unanimously in the NY Assembly last June. It's time for the Senate to get on board (pun intended)! 🔠 🔗 Go to the LINK IN OUR BIO for a contact form that will send your message to everyone needed! 📧 ℹ️ Even though we are providing you with the essentials, please take a few moments to personalize your message before sending. It will be so much more powerful that way! 🌎 You can take action on this no matter where in the world you live. 🙌 Let's show up together for communication rights AGAIN! Video description: Alex and Judy type and talk with a news reporter as text "Alex's Story" appears on the top, an NBC News banner on the bottom reads "Fight over nonspeakers' right to communicate." Alex types on a wireless keyboard that Judy holds as his communication partner "It is torture" in response to the reporter's question. Alex then types "To be able to talk is a basic human right," while sped-up footage of him typing is shown on the left. Open captions appear on the bottom. #CommunicationIsAHumanRight #CommunicationBillOfRights #Nonspeaking #Spellers #Typers

🚨 It's time to make noise again! 🔠 Senator Fahy is trying to amend the Communication Bill of Rights in the NY State Senate AGAIN, so that it’s not even a bill of rights anymore— but an unfunded research grant, which would continue to give the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) control over communication. She wants to spend millions in state tax payer money to prove a method we already know is working. This is an effort to run out the clock! We need you to contact Senate leadership and the Disabilities Committee, to ask for INTERVENTION, because Fahy is FAILING her job as Chair of the Disabilities Committee. We made it super EASY for you to contact everyone needed. PLEASE PERSONALIZE your message as much as you can. After a few clicks (and hopefully some typing), your message will be on its way! You do not need to live in New York, or even the United States, to help. 🔗 See the link in our bio for instructions! Video description: Text on top reads "NY Communication Bill of Rights Update" while open captions appear on the bottom. Landscape NBC News in the middle shows the Senate Communication Bill of Rights above a news banner that reads "Fight over nonspeakers' right to communicate." Senator Fahy speaks at a podium while "Validated Communication" is overlaid. Two news anchors report from their studio for the remainder. #CommunicationBillOfRights #NYStateSenate #Spellers #Typers #Nonspeaking

Last month I had the honor of hosting an interview with Dr. Elizabeth Torres, one of the most respected neuroscientists and researchers of our time. The conversation was led by Katie Asher, Sara Intonato, and Becca Cramer, and it was one of the most important discussions we’ve had on the science behind motor challenges, communication, and the profound misunderstandings surrounding nonspeakers. The interview was powerful, eye-opening, and deeply validating for so many families. I’ll be sharing some of the highlights here over the coming weeks. 🎙️ Autism Odyssey Podcast The Presume Competence Series 4 #AutismOdyssey #CommunicationIsAHumanRight #Apraxia #Neuroscience #DrElizabethTorres

Pleased to welcome Abby — a non-speaker and speller — along with her parents to the Assembly Chamber. Abby’s story is a powerful reminder that every voice deserves to be heard and that communication comes in many forms. Thank you for inspiring us with your strength, perseverance, and advocacy.

Today, I got to have a conversation with my 9yo son. My heart is so grateful. 🌷 Happy Mother’s Day 🌷

Fun fact: C4A's Executive Director Elizabeth is a host on @siriusxm 's @thebeatles Channel with fellow typer @aiden_levy_wants_to_tell_you ! New episodes released monthly! Catch the show live on Channel 18 on SiriusXM on weekends, or any time on the SiriusXM app (subscription required). Listen any time at the link in our bio: https://sxm.app.link/WeWantToTellYou #TheBeatles #SiriusXM #Autism #Nonspeaking #NonspeakingAutism