Recently, I re-listened to an interview with writer/director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther) and writer Aaron Covington (Creed) on the Podcast, “Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period,” which is hosted by W. Kamau Bell and Kevin Avery. Across these four professional, creative, confident, compelling Black men, I heard a diversity of English dialectal differences that prompted me…

Please note: I am choosing to use “identity first language” in the following post and not “person first language.”  Over the past several years, I’ve served, worked with, and listened to hundreds of Autistic self advocates and have come to this decision.  For further reading, I’ll direct you to an illuminating article, “Identity-First Language,” by Lydia Brown shared on the Autistic Self Advocacy…

My working title for this post was,  “Embracing Inclusion, Culture, and Relationship: Relinquishing the Medical Model While Serving Neurodiverse Populations.” Which is just like me.  Extra.  (And notice, I still had to share it.)   On a related note: American Sign Language (ASL) contains a sign pair describing the general communication styles of Deaf people versus hearing people [i].  These two signs are identical…

Recently, I was invited to lead an inclusion discussion with young people through the Pittsburgh Chapter of The Friendship Circle. (www.fcpgh.org) “The Friendship Circle of Pittsburgh was established in 2006 with the intention of creating a more inclusive community.  Our programs engage youth and adults with diverse abilities in a full range of social activities; we aim to enrich the lives of all…

I’m from Pittsburgh. Some say, “Picksburgh.” Western Pennsylvania is cursed…nay, blessed with a unique dialect known here as, “Pittsburghese” but in academic circles as  Western Pennsylvania English (WPE).  Many university-educated natives, implanted academics, and the burgeoning nouveau hipster class look down upon it, and those who use WPE unabashedly are largely derided as jagoffs and yinzers.  The origins of our dialect can be directly traced…

I’m a Speech and Language Therapist. Once, when I was still an undergraduate student and in Japan with Semester at Sea, a gentleman on a train asked me what I intended to do for a profession. “Speech and Language Pathologist.” He puzzled over that final word.  “Pah…thaw…loh…gist,” and he pulled out a dictionary.  (This story is pure non-fiction.  Really.  Yes, I met a…