09/23/2026
As a child who grew up nonverbal until the age of eight, I learned early that compliance was often prioritized over connection within my speech therapy sessions. I internalized this. Completely.
I was expected to remain in my chair. I completed drill after drill. I was taught, directly and indirectly, that I needed to control my body, ignore my discomfort, and appear ready before I could be seen as ready to learn. In many ways, I had to learn how to mask before I was given the chance to learn how to speak. I want you to sit on that for a moment.
I was born with childhood apraxia of speech, and I desperately wanted to communicate. I wanted people to know what I was thinking. I wanted to connect with the world around me because I was trapped in my brain. My desire to speak was greater than what I was feeling during those sessions, so I pushed through. I did what was expected of me because speech felt like something I had to earn.
That approach may have helped me develop spoken speech with the direct method of motor planning itself, and I will always be grateful for the treatment and support that helped me fight for my voice. But gratitude and honesty can exist together. I can appreciate the skills I gained while also acknowledging the lasting consequences of how I was expected to gain them.
For years, I blamed myself. I wondered why sitting still was so hard. I wondered why I could not simply fit in or behave like everyone else. I thought my sensory needs, movement, distress, and differences were personal failures. Looking back now, I understand that none of that was my fault. I was a child trying to participate in an environment that did not fully accommodate the way my body and brain worked.
Children should not have to hide their needs to prove that they are capable of learning. A child having a disability does not mean they can not learn, instead, we need to adjust the learning environment to meet their unique needs.
Connection is not a reward that comes after compliance. Connection is what makes learning accessible. When a child feels safe, understood, and respected, they are more able to engage, communicate, and build trust with their provider.
If we do not build a connection with the child, respect their autonomy, support their sensory needs, and provide the accommodations they need to participate, we are setting them up for failure. We cannot call a child “noncompliant” when the session itself is inaccessible. We cannot assume a child is unwilling to learn when their body may be communicating that they are overwhelmed, uncomfortable, dysregulated, afraid, or exhausted.
Participation does not have to mean sitting still in a chair. Attention does not always look like eye contact or a "quiet body" (I dislike this term). Progress should not require a child to suppress natural movement, tolerate distress, or disconnect from their own body. A child can learn while standing, moving, taking breaks, using AAC, avoiding eye contact, or engaging through an interest that feels meaningful to them.
Our job is not to make children look less disabled. It is not to train them to appear compliant for the comfort of adults. The goal should be to help each child communicate in ways that are authentic, accessible, and meaningful to them.
This requires providers to ask different questions. Instead of asking, “How do we make this child comply?” we should ask, “What is this child communicating through their behavior?” Instead of asking, “How do we keep them in the chair?” we should ask, “What would make this environment more accessible?” Instead of measuring success only by completed trials, we should also consider whether the child felt safe, had choices, trusted the provider, and left the session with their autonomy intact.
I am sharing this because many speech-language pathologists follow my work, and many parents take what they learn from me back to their child’s SLP. I want us to have honest conversations about what therapy can look like and how it can improve. This is not about blaming every provider or dismissing the value of speech therapy. It is about recognizing that good intentions do not automatically prevent harm, and that we can do better when we listen to people with lived experience.
I will always value the support that helped me learn to speak. I also have a responsibility to tell the whole truth: communication should never come at the cost of a child’s sense of safety, identity, or worth.
Children deserve therapy built on trust. They deserve choices, accommodations, movement, breaks, sensory support, and access to every form of communication that works for them. Most of all, they deserve to know that they are not broken, difficult, or failing.
I was never broken nor will I ever be; and today as an adult I finally know that.
- Jordan Christian LeVan
