RPM and Spelling: Why the Lesson Plan Model Changes Everything

 If your non-speaking autistic child is learning to spell, or you're looking for a provider and don't know what to look for, this episode of the Autism Changemakers Podcast is essential listening. 

I am a Level 2 RPM provider and I have been supporting families on the spelling journey for years, including raising my own son Rocco, who is 16 and four years into communicating with a letterboard as an open speller. And one of the things I am most passionate about in this space is something that does not get talked about nearly enough: the lesson plan model, why it exists, and what is quietly lost when we skip it. 

Everyone wants to hear their child's voice. That desire is beautiful and it is real. But when we rush to open communication before the foundation is solid, we are building on ground that cannot hold the weight of what we are asking it to carry. 

In this episode I talk about: 

• What a lesson plan actually is in the RPM model, and why it is so much more than a teaching tool. It is a framework for assessing learning channels, building skill and tolerance goals, and tracking real progress over time.
• Why focusing only on output, what your child spells, and ignoring input, what they are actually absorbing and learning, is one of the most common and costly mistakes families make.
• The surprising reason some parents quit spelling after their child starts communicating, and why the lesson plan model is what builds the parent buy-in that keeps families in the process long term.
• Why providers who let students set the frame for the entire session may be operating from people-pleasing energy rather than genuine support, and what that costs the student.
• Why open spellers still need lesson plans, and what teenagers and adults who have lost access to structured learning in their sessions are saying about it when they finally get to spell freely.

The goal was never just communication. The goal is a full life. A life that includes learning, growth, relationships, education, and as much independence as possible.
 
Your child deserves that. And the lesson plan is one of the clearest paths to get there.
 
If this resonated, come find me, Sara Intonato, on Instagram @sara.intonato or learn more about Autism Changemakers at autismchangemakers.com.
 
Autism Changemakers is a private community just for parents of nonspeaking kids. It's where you don't have to explain yourself, and where you'll always be surrounded by people who believe in your child's brilliance. Come join us. autismchangemakers.com

Transcript

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Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Autism Changemakers podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Antonato, and we are committed to bringing you unscripted, unedited information that's going to help you as a parent or caregiver to an autistic non-speaker or an unreliable speaker today. We are here for real results, and that's why today's episode is so important. I want to talk about something that comes up in the spelling and communication world a lot. It is why I am such a strong advocate for the lesson plan model in any spelling method, but my certifications are in rapid prompting method RPM. Now, if you're new and your child is not yet on a spelling journey, you might be tempted to turn this episode right off. But I'm going to encourage you to listen because if this is something you've been wondering about, this episode is going to show you how to be discerning when choosing a provider or choosing an approach at home to empower your child and also help you gain results faster because you're not spinning wheels. I want to start by saying this is not about criticizing other approaches. There are many wonderful people with great intentions doing important work. But after years of supporting families and watching hundreds of students learn to communicate, including my own son, who's 16 and now an open speller four years into our journey of using a letterboard to communicate, I've become increasingly convinced that the lesson plan structure serves students, families, and providers in some really important ways. Now, if you are an experienced spelling family, I want you to listen as well, and I'll tell you why. People often think that having what's called an open speller, an individual who can fluently communicate with the letterboard, is the goal. And once you hit that goal, you can go rogue and do whatever you want. Now, of course, spelling is meant to unlock someone's voice. So there will be at that point conversational communication. There is in my home as well. However, especially when someone is learning, or if they're trying to make progress in a certain way, such as with academic curriculum, or build on their ability to tolerate sitting longer, spelling a lengthier passage, etc. Lesson plans really truly can't be beat. So let's take a closer look. To start, what is a lesson plan and why is it important? Drawing from my background in Rapid Prompting Method, a provider intends to come to every lesson with a lesson plan in place. Ideally, the lesson plan is essentially an action plan to teach a student about a topic that is age-appropriate and enjoyable for them to learn about. And within the lesson plan, it gives the provider or the parent an opportunity to assess their learning channels. The main learning channels are auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic, but also to trap progress towards goals. Yes, goals. And this is important because every lesson plan can and should, in my opinion, in the rapid prompting method world, it does have goals in regards to an individual's skills. For example, pointing is a skill. Using a stylus is a skill. Being able to complete a sensory activity is a skill. Another goal it would have would be tolerance. And when you're looking at this through the lens of the sensory system, this is incredibly important. Does a student have enough visual tolerance to look at the letterboard long enough to communicate something? Do they have the sensory tolerance to sit in a chair? If not, how can you adapt and meet them where they are? The other goals we keep in mind are educational and communication. Educational is one that I ask everyone to keep in mind because spelling is not just about spelling, it's not just about output. People get so excited to hear what a non-speaker has to say that everyone focuses on the output of a spelling session. Not enough people are focusing on the input or what the student is actually absorbing. And this is crucial because this is about learning. All of this is about learning. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. And even if your child does not yet have the sensory tolerance to spell a sentence, or they're not yet strong enough pointing to communicate more than a few letters at a time, yet what's the worst that happens in a session that uses a lesson plan? They learn something. This is powerful, and it empowers the student to realize that their mind is valuable. And learning is valuable, even if they've never been taught before, even if they've been treated like they can't learn, they can. And we as providers are here to be curious around helping them do that. So a lesson plan, again, is about assessing learning channels, what someone needs to learn, looking at skill, tolerance, educational and communication goals, and also helping a student develop reasoning and choice making skills, critical thinking, and analysis. This is not just an output for social conversation, although it can be as well. So let's cut right to the chase. Reason number one that I value the lesson plan model so very much, and this one might surprise you, is because parent buy-in matters so much more than people realize. And the reason I said this might surprise you is because I've had parents take their kids to spelling sessions. I've heard about this from people in my local community whose kids are minimally speaking or non-speaking, who, for better or worse, have not been exposed to educational environments that presume competence. So we're seeing eight, 10, 12, 15-year-olds who have been educated at a kindergarten level for most of their lives. And that means you also have parents who've been told your child is only capable of this, at least right now. So naturally, when these families who I've spoken with have found a spelling provider, and all of a sudden their child has gone from doing pre-K or kindergarten work to spelling out these really profuse open sentences about deeply spiritual topics and insightful things, it has felt like a disconnect in the parents' brain, and they quit. You heard that right. These families, these parents quit spelling after their child started communicating. Not because it wasn't working, but because it was working too well. Think about that for a moment. Again, imagine you've spent years, maybe a decade or more, being told your child your child does not understand. You've been told they cannot communicate, and you've probably been told they don't have the cognitive ability to learn certain things. And then suddenly your child starts spelling fast, sharing complex ideas without any type of foundation that you're able to see or understand. That's a lot for a parent to process, and it can feel unbelievable. I've literally had parents say to me, verbatim, I feel like it was just too much. My child went from not really being able to spell outwardly, at least not on their AAC device or with traditional methods, to all of a sudden spelling really profound things. It just didn't make sense to me. It was overwhelming to them. And it can create a kind of cognitive dissonance where what you're seeing doesn't match what you've been told for years. That in and of itself is not a bad thing. But what I love about the lesson plan model is that parents get a chance to watch the process unfold from the ground up. They watch their child developing motor planning. They watch them learning to attend, being able to tolerate the process. They watch them answer questions, starting with basic listening or reading comprehension questions about the lesson. They can watch them slowly build their way up to semi-open-ended or open-ended questions one at a time. They can see the progression. And I believe parents need to see the progression so that this cognitive dissonance does not overpower them and stop them before they get any real progress. So if this process is followed, when communication begins to emerge, it doesn't feel like magic. It feels earned, it feels observable and it feels real. And most importantly, because parents in this position understand how their child got there, they're far more likely to trust the process and stick with it. That's incredibly important because parents are part of the program. And they need to be, if they ever want their child to communicate as a member of the family, not just as a student who answers academic questions or says a sentence once in a while. The goal, in my opinion, is not to create dependence on a provider. The goal is to help families understand what is possible and move in that direction slowly, step by step. Reason number two spelling providers are not mental health clinicians. This is a conversation I think our field needs to have more openly. When someone spends years without a reliable way to express themselves, it is only natural that big feelings may emerge when communication opens up. There may be grief, frustration, anger, trauma. There may be years of thoughts and experiences they've never had a way to share or process. And that is a lot. And while spelling providers may be incredibly skilled at teaching, learning, and communication, that does not automatically make them trained mental health professionals. Those are different skill sets. And students deserve appropriate emotional support when significant feelings arise. Providers deserve support too. I've seen situations where sessions become almost entirely emotional processing because that's the only place the student has to express themselves. But when that happens, the communication lesson stops being a communication lesson. It becomes less about learning and more about processing. The provider can then get pulled into a role they may not be trained for. And the student may not actually be getting the mental health support they deserve in that environment. I have seen many students start talking about big things and become very dysregulated in the process. If you are engaging in a conversation with someone, and I say this as a coach now, not as an arm preamp provider, but as a coach, if you are engaging in a conversation with someone and you are pulling at threads that can lead to unprocessed trauma and grief coming up, you had better be prepared to help untangle these threads so that your student or client leaves that room feeling grounded and supported and knowing what their next steps are. When they do not have that, essentially you pull at threads, but just like a ball of yarn, if you're pulling at threads and you're not really digging into where they lead, you end up pulling things tighter and everything gets really knotted up and tangled. And it's frustrating to try to sort through it. In my opinion, everyone is better served when we recognize these are different needs. Communication support is important. Mental health support is important. And very often they are not. That doesn't mean you can't hire your communication partner or provider to accompany your speller to a therapy session so that they can process through things properly with all the supports that they need. But you can't assume that is the spelling provider's role or that they're comfortable with it. And I know this can feel tricky because when a student who has not had a voice, maybe for decades, starts spelling openly, it's so tempting to just ask them questions about their opinion and their thoughts and their feelings. But we need to do that in a way that's responsible and honors their experience. Reason number three, I touched on this in the introduction, but every lesson should have goals. This is simple. So simple that I think people are not paying enough attention to it. Every session should be moving somewhere. Not rigidly or mechanically, but intentionally. So we can be intentional on asking ourselves: what are the skills, educational goals, what are the objectives that would benefit this student? What would help them on their journey? How can I craft a lesson plan that actually helps and challenges them in a healthy way to make real progress with these certain things? You can also have regulation goals. These are not official on the RPM lesson plan format, but that's a wonderful goal to have. And one that you'll often see progress in simply by using a lesson plan. So essentially, what are we building? What is the next step that will serve the student? Where do we want to see them in six months or a year from now? The lesson plan model ensures we're not just having sessions to have sessions. We're building capacity, we're developing learners, we're increasing access to education. I can't emphasize how important this is. In the relationship development intervention world, RDI, they've published some beautiful blog posts and articles around how when studying autistic individuals who are now adults, it's not their disability that creates hardship in their life exclusively. It is their lack of exposure to education and current events and the world around them that creates just as much hardship. If an autistic individual has never been provided with an education or any type of training, we can't expect them to be independent and act in alignment with the world around them if they know nothing about the world around them. We are creating opportunities for future independence by providing them with an education. Even an education that happens in a 30-minute spelling session. Progress, positive outcomes, open spellers don't happen by accident. Spellers who are going to college and having careers don't happen by accident. They happen because somebody is paying attention to the long game and working on it diligently, even when they don't want to. Reason number four. If your child only wants open communication time during a spelling session, that is information. And let's talk about it because it's something I hear fairly frequently. I brought my child to a spelling session, Sarah, and they only want to talk. They don't want to do a lesson. They want to spend the whole session communicating. And my response to that statement is that tells us something. If your child desperately needs every session to be open communication time, there's a good chance they're not getting enough opportunities to communicate elsewhere, including at home. And this is not a criticism. If you're not yet communicating with your child on a letterboard at home, consider this an invitation. But you also don't have to overcomplicate it. Very often, when I have a family just getting started on this journey that's living a busy life with a lot of responsibilities, usually manning a lot of behaviors, navigating school advocacy, all kinds of things. Give their child two paper choices at snack time: an A for an apple, a B for a banana. And ask their child to make a choice and to practice pointing and motor planning, looking at two letters at a time, that visual tolerance. If your child is getting that at home and they're building and they're moving towards open communication, they will value the learning that occurs in a lesson in a provider's office much more. Because it's not the only place they're being heard. The provider will then be free to focus on education, skill building, growth, etc. Of course, we want conversational opportunities for communication in your home and in a provider's office from time to time when it's appropriate. Of course, your child deserves to be heard. But if the entire session becomes a conversation every single time, you might be missing the opportunity to build the skills that create long-term open spelling progress at home. This is one of the reasons why Autism Changemakers exists. We help parents become confident communication partners because when communication is happening throughout the week at home, students don't have to wait for their once-per-week session with a provider to be heard. And that changes everything. Your child then becomes free to learn and grow and explore. And not just feel like it's their only time of the week to vent. I would also say, and I've talked to some parents and Spelling providers who I trust, who are also working with open spellers. If you go to a provider and your child pushes back and says, I don't want to do a lesson plan. I just want to spell openly. I personally believe it is the provider's job to set the frame for the lesson, maybe through the lens of first the lesson, and then we'll ask some open questions about the lesson to start with, and then we'll move into something else. But it's not fair to put the frame of the lesson and the direction of the lesson on the student. They deserve to feel like a provider is prepared and in charge. And people can agree with me, they can disagree with me. I'm not here to be right. But I find it very curious when a provider doesn't feel confident enough to say, that's not how this works. We're going to start with the lesson plan at least, and then we'll move on from there. Is there a people-pleasing energy going on? Does the provider feel badly that the student doesn't have a voice at home but isn't willing to talk to the parents and ask them to step up their game? So they accommodate by letting the student talk openly during the whole session. I don't know. I'm not in the mind of these providers who, by the way, I know have really good hearts and really want to help. But is it helping? That's the bigger question. And as I see teenagers and adults who are open spellers in sessions with their providers, who are not learning anything, I've heard them express their frustration at not learning anything and wanting to. Because if they're in a school program that does not presume competence, they're not learning there. If they don't have open communication with the letterboard in the home, they're not learning a lot there, as much as they could at least, even though I know parents are doing their best. They provide structure and measurable goals. And if you bristle when you hear the words measurable goals, I want to remind you: you have measurable goals every day. If you have a fitness journey going on, if you are looking to grow your wealth or investments, or even pay off your credit card debt, you have goals that require you to measure things. This is no different. Lesson plans protect providers from being pushed into roles they didn't ask for and are not trained for. They also protect the students to make sure they're supported when they need next level support. They help ensure communication instruction remains educational, purposeful, and sustainable. Most importantly, they remind us that the goal isn't just communication. The goal is a full life, a life that includes learning, growth, relationships, education, self expression, and ultimately as much independence as possible. I know my child who's a non speaker deserves that. And so does yours. Thank you so much for listening today. I'll see you at the next episode.