Hi, I’m TJ, or Tiffany, creator of the social media platforms, Nigh Functioning Autism. I am a single mother of three neurodivergent teens. I live and work in and around Maryland and Virginia, in the Washington DC area.
I am Autistic, diagnosed in my late teens. However, I was diagnosed with other conditions when I was in elementary school, like central auditory processing disorder and ADHD. I also have had epilepsy and OCD since I was a child. I am hard of hearing as well. As such, I use many ways to communicate like ASL, mouth words, high-tech AAC and other ways depending on how accessible my speech and memory is to me at the moment.
I work in special education or more preferred, ‘accessible education’, as a paraeducator for elementary school and a communication teacher/ partner to mostly teen and young adult Autistic nonspeakers.
My passion in the disability space is communication and education rights for people of all disabilities. I specifically love teaching how to implement high-tech speech generating devices in schools and homes. I always say, I would have access to my own speech if I had text-based or high-tech speech generating strategies earlier in my life.
I proudly sit on the board for Lilly’s Voice, a non-profit organization that provides high-tech speech generating devices for nonspeakers under age 18 in the United States. I am also a member of the Maryland Developmental Disabilities council, which is a federally funded, national organization in every state that sets the disability culture, policy, and laws in that state.
Book Recommendations:
Miracle at St. Anna
Leaders Around Me
Follow me at The MD Autism Project for more content.
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