![]() ![]() Non-speaking and unreliably-speaking autistic individuals are generally unable to speak because of motor issues, not cognitive ones. One recent study found that nearly two-thirds of autistic children have a motor planning disorder called apraxia ( Tierney et al., 2015 ). A substantial body of research also indicates that autism is fundamentally characterized by motoric and sensory differences.Assuming that an individual with impaired speech has impaired language or lacks the intelligence to produce complex communication is neither appropriate nor “evidence-based.” There is no anatomical basis for assuming non-speaking individuals are “non-thinking” speech and language are processed in different parts of the brain.Several studies have demonstrated these assessments are inaccurate in measuring the intelligence of most non-speaking or unreliably-speaking individuals. In fact, all standard assessments of intelligence require the subject to either speak or move parts of their body in a controlled, volitional fashion. ![]() But there are no reliable data on the rate of intellectual disability in non-speaking people. ASHA’s statements assume that non-speakers lack the intelligence to generate the messages they type. Many people wrongly assume people who cannot speak are incapable of complex thought and language.There are many conditions other than autism that can prevent individuals from being able to speak (e.g., Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), stroke, Parkinson’s), and so the number of non-speaking people in the U.S. Given that roughly one-third of the autistic population over the age of 5 is non-speaking or minimally-speaking (Anderson et al., 2007 ), there may be more than 3 million non-speaking or minimally speaking autistics in the U.S. population, it would mean there are about 9.5 million autistics in the country. ![]() If that 3% prevalence rate were assumed to hold for the entire U.S. have received a diagnosis of autism (National Center for Health Statistics, 2017 ). According to the United States Center for Disease Control, about 3% of children in the U.S.
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