Unlocking Treatment For Nonverbal Autistic Clients Communicate

If you’ve ever wondered how much is going on inside a “nonverbal” brain, this conversation may change the way you see autism forever. I’m joined by Dr. Nanda Sattva, director of neuroscience at the Brain Enhancement Center in Bellevue, to talk about what happens when communication is blocked not by a lack of intelligence, but by the brain’s ability to coordinate movement, regulation, and access to the right networks at the right time.

We unpack a powerful reframe: profound autism often presents as a motor disturbance, including apraxia, where intention and action don’t reliably connect. That mismatch can make standard IQ and performance testing deeply misleading. Nanda shares a pivotal moment with a client who couldn’t speak but spelled clearly on a letterboard and device, introducing himself and revealing a mind that had been “there the whole time.” We also discuss how EEG-informed observations like excessive slow activity in motor regions can look like cortical disengagement, and why sensory sensitivity and emotional regulation challenges can shape everything from stimming to social connection.

From there, we get practical about neurotherapy and neuromodulation. We explain a multimodal approach that may include light-based therapy, pulse electromagnetic field (PEMF), and cranioelectrical stimulation, using frequency as a language the brain understands to support neuroplasticity, blood flow, and more stable communication between regions. If you’re a parent, clinician, or curious listener looking for brain health tools and autism support options, you’ll leave with clearer words for what might be happening and what questions to ask next.

Subscribe for the next conversation, share this with someone who needs hope, and leave a review so more families can find it. What’s one assumption about nonverbal autism you’re ready to rethink?

To learn more about Brain Enhancement Center, visit
https://brainenhancementcenter.org/

To learn more about Transformative Neurotherapy visit:
https://www.TransformativeNeurotherapy.org
Transformative Neurotherapy
570 Lincoln Ave. 
Bellevue, PA 15202 
412-204-7397  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Transformative Neurotherapy Podcast with your host, Dr. Heather Putney, founder and executive director of Transformative Neurotherapy. This is the place where healing happens faster. Because let's face it, your brain doesn't come with an owner's manual until now. Here we take a holistic approach to brain health, bringing together science, mind-body harmony, and the tools you need to optimize your well-being. Whether you're a high-performer, executive, athlete, longevity hacker, or just someone tired of your brain working against you, Dr. Putney is here to help you unlock your full potential. From brain fog to chronic stress, we're covering it all so you can finally experience brain health, mind harmony, and total well-being. Ready to get on stuck? Let's get started.

Neurotherapy As A Brain Tune-Up

SPEAKER_01 0:56

A growing number of families are discovering communication doesn't begin with words, it begins with the brain. Today, we're exploring how neurotherapy is opening new pathways for children who haven't yet found their voice. Welcome everyone. I'm Heather Putney, founder and executive director of transformative neurotherapy. Here in the studio with Nanda, the director of neuroscience at the Brain Enhancement Center in Bellevue, Washington. Nanda, we are so excited to hear from you today. The work that you are doing with these nonverbal autistic clients is just incredible. And more people need to know about this so that they know what options are out there to help people heal. So please just take it away. We're just dying to hear from your wealth of knowledge on how to work with these um with these clients.

Meeting Stone Through A Letterboard

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Yeah, I mean, I think it's uh it's an amazing opportunity. And when I talk with people, I use the example of a car engine. If there's an issue in the car engine, you plug it into uh to you know, take it to a mechanic, they plug it in, they evaluate how the engine is running, and then you're able to identify areas that may be out of balance or underperforming, or areas that are overperforming. And that's uh an opportunity that um we have in the neurotherapy space to help people understand what's going on inside the brain at a at a deeper level, and then to help train the brain to perform better. Um, and it's been uh an awakening experience um working with a lot of nonverbal individuals uh of all shapes and sizes and ages, um, and really discovering that the it's not a intellectual disability, um, as I thought for a long time. Um it is and the mainstream medical association and most doctors will give all of these tests, IQ tests, performance tests to an individual who has profound autism. And it shows up as their IQ is that of like a, you know, a two or three-year-old, because they're unable to get their body to perform the way that um a normal typical person is able to perform. However, uh, it's not an intellectual disability. Um we were blessed to be taught um by our very first nonverbal individual who was able to uh spell on a letterboard and on a communication device. And although this individual um was, you know, repeatedly stimming and and looping and had difficulty to control their body, they were able to use a letterboard to clearly communicate. And we sat down, and that was a life-changing moment when although he's not able to communicate, he's you know, he reached over to his spelling or his communication device and write, wrote, Hi, I'm Stone, nice to meet you. And that was uh an amazing moment because I'd never seen a communication device, and it's just been a journey ever since of um awakening and understanding that there's so much more that these individuals are capable of and that they deserve the chance to be able to express that and to increase uh their quality of life and well-being and to break out of the box, right? And so I like that you said that individuals who haven't found their voice yet because I think that's the case for so many individuals where they've been put into a little box and um that's what I'm excited to talk to, you know, be able to share the data there is so much more present. And we've worked with a number of individuals who weren't able to communicate until they were 20 years old. And they their parents believed the that they were intellectually disabled than them. They learned how to communicate and um they're able to communicate that they've been there the whole time, they understand everything, they're highly intelligent. Um, one of my uh clients, you know, taught himself multiple languages and knows multiple languages, although he wasn't able to speak, but um once he was able to, uh he was able to to communicate fluently and openly with um with everybody, and it's it's an amazing journey.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Wow, that's incredible. That's incredible. So um, you know, just for the lay person um getting involved with this, what are you uh I don't know, what themes are you seeing with the clients coming in from like the the brain-based perspective, you know, whether or brain and body, because I also know you have a background in chiropractor and overwhel overall well-being. So not just the EEGs, but just overall, like what you know, what themes are you seeing and how do you intervene?

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah. Um, so again, the profound autism in is after doing a lot more research and everything, is not a intellectual, it's a motor disturbance. And these individuals have something called apraxia. And apraxia is when the brain is not able to get the body to do what um we want. And so if you know we're flying a spaceship or if you're a a robot, the wiring system is a little bit off. And so that is the most common theme, is that there's a disconnect between intention and and actually fulfilling that intention and getting the body to do what the mind wants to do. We take advantage of speech as very easy, um, but when you actually think about all of the little motor movements that go into the mouth and the tongue and the placement of everything, um, it's one of the most intricate and um motor movements that we do every day. And so every individual is different. Um some individuals, when they come in, there are areas of the brain, like in the motor area of the brain, where there will be excessive uh slow activity. And that slow activity is a cortical disengagement. And so that individual is not able to access that region of their brain the same way that everybody else is, and so there's a communication interrupt. And um for other individuals, it's also uh uh uh an emotional regulation issue. Like there's a lot of emotional regulation and sensitivities that come with uh profound autism in in many really good books. Um Edo and Autism Land, um Speller or uh what is the name of the book? Um the book that founded Spellers Organization where people are able to learn how to spell. Um I can't remember, but there's a lot of good books where these individuals describe the experience and the sensory differences, and it's a different world. And so helping to balance the emotional system and improve the communication between uh the different regions of the brain can have a really powerful impact in an individual's ability to um perform in a way that allows their true self to be exposed, uh to interact more socially, to um reduce the amount of stimm and and hand flapping or covering the ears and hiding or a lot of the stereotypical behaviors that's associated with um for these individuals. And uh, I mean it's just uh it's an amazing thing, but that would probably be the apraxia and understanding the the fact that when the brain works better, uh life gets easier emotionally and physically. And so that's probably the two biggest areas where we're able to help uh to improve the nervous system and the way that the nervous system relates to the body and all of the all of the demands that life has.

Multimodal Tools To Train The Brain

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Right. So let's talk interventions. What are some of the strategies or interventions you use to help, you know, bring the cortex back online or help improve the communication centers or the motors that are of the brain? So tell us what are you know some of the effective interventions that you're using in your clinic.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Yeah, and so it's a we typically are using a multimodal approach to restore wellness to the brain. Um, so using lights to go in and help to decrease inflammation and to improve the blood flow, the neuroplasticity. Um, there's pulse electromagnetic field that's bathing the brain in healing energy waves that are able to activate a whole cascade of cellular healing mechanisms while also increasing the amount of oxygen and nutrient-rich blood that are going to a region, also decreasing inflammation. Um, and then uh cranioelectric. And so speaking the same language of the brain, and when you're you know able to use a frequency, the brain understands frequency, right? It understands that language. And so, as you're able to um help an individual's brain to adjust to a more beneficial frequency or pattern or or firing oscillations, uh it really can help to improve the performance and the way that the brain is communicating between regions. Um yeah, that's the amazing thing, is when you're able to give the brain a language that it understands, it it just works. Uh and it and it helps in so many different ways. And when you're able to do all of that at the same time, you're really stacking multiple modalities that are really beneficial. And they create an environment where the brain is able to adapt and in train um to uh more balance and stability.

Next Stories Plus How To Start

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Well, that's that's really exciting. And uh just for a teaser for those of you that are listening, our next uh podcast with uh Nanda here is going to talk about some of the success stories they've had. So we're excited to hear um about that next episode. So thank you so much for your your wisdom and for this information to get out to the world and especially to the the parents or the children that are struggling with these challenges. So thank you so much for the work you do, and until next episode.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

You've been listening to the Transformative Neurotherapy Podcast with Dr. Heather Putney. Remember, your brain isn't supposed to hold you back, it's supposed to power you forward. So stop letting it crash your party and start letting it do its job. If you're ready to optimize brain health, sharpen your focus, and age like a fine wine, schedule your free consultation today at Transformative Neurotherapy.org. Or call us at 412-204-7397. Because here, healing happens faster. See you next time.