State Letter
Letter to My State Reps
I am a Wisconsin constituent and founder of Kimberly’s Educational Resources. I am an educator and neurodivergence advocate who collaborates with researchers on neurodevelopment and systems biochemistry.
Key Takeaways
I would greatly appreciate your leadership in helping to create a path forward for nonverbal children. Whether through pilot programs, research funding, or policy initiatives that recognize nonverbality as a mechanistic condition requiring medical investigation, with designated department oversight, not just behavioral management for coping with trapped cognizance. I have created a change petition outlining, but haven't had too many eyes on it yet: https://chng.it/zzR7NFKq5Z
Here is the urgent issue:
Parents of nonverbal children are given folders of behavioral resources, but no medical testing to determine why their child cannot speak.
For blindness and deafness, protocols exist: identify the cause, decide whether it can be corrected, or plan accommodations.
For nonverbal children, there is no equivalent protocol.
The Department of Health and Human Services has offices for the blind and the deaf, but not for nonverbality. Without funding, oversight, or designated responsibility, these children are left without answers.
Why Wisconsin Should Lead
Wisconsin could pioneer a solution by initiating pilot programs or research initiatives to establish standardized testing protocols for the nerves and muscles involved in speech production.
As an educator working across seven different districts, I see firsthand how nonverbal children require extensive educational and disability resources. Addressing this gap would:
Provide families with real answers, not just coping strategies.
Reduce long-term financial burdens on schools and social services.
Help stabilize special education staffing by easing burnout and turnover.
Background
When my nonverbal autistic daughter couldn't blow out a candle on her birthday cake, I realized something was physically obstructing her ability to make the sounds required to speak. She could scream and make sounds, but something was blocking the ability to fine tune that into words. I took to the research and realized they have never actually tested the nerves involved with producing words, like they test the nerves involved with lack of ability to see or hear in the blind and deaf.
I helped my nonverbal autistic daughter acquire the ability to speak using neuroplasticity, which is a way to utilize new experiences and learning to manipulate neural development in motor and brain neurons. I'm a teacher, with degrees in education and special education with a minor in instruction strategies. This is where my coursework overlapped and it made the most sense to try that route. It worked. She is now a chatterbox, and a social butterfly. She is currently in the process of planning her first sleepover with a bunch of girlfriends from school. She was previously on CLTS, which they have to qualify for institutionalization to get into, and one of the most aggressive children in our area. She was extremely frustrated from having full cognizance and lack of ability to verbalize wants/needs. I have been calling this experience trapped cognizance.
When I released our story online, everyone asked me how and why neuroplasticity worked. I responded that nonverbality is a comorbidity and is therefore physiologically linked to autism. The neuroplasticity helped improve gain of function through cross modal plasticity, and expanded existing networks that previously were not working. They asked how autism and the comorbidities are linked, and that is how my autism and the comorbidities theory was born.
The connection between the biochemical links between autism and the comorbidities will, hopefully, advance research on treatment of autistic comorbidities as the science settles. However, my main concern is closing that gap in testing for nonverbal kids. As parents, we are given a folder of community resources for our children's behavioral and emotional responses to their trapped cognizance. They recieve no mechanistic testing for why they can't speak. They do not test the actual physical parts that produce sound out of the mouth (I'm eyeing up the EBSLN). For the deaf and blind they have protocols to test what isn't working, determine whether or not it can be fixed or should be accommodated. We don't have that for the mute and it is desperately needed. The HHS has departments for the blind, the deaf, etc. They do not have a department on nonverbality. The problem seems to be that no one is specifically paid to fund this research, nor to care. So, the gap has gone unaddressed.
The science if interested: autism and the comorbidities are biochemically linked via gene mutations activating the regulatory system stress response chronically in predictable downstream ways, and various phenotypes exist based on which form of allostatic regulatory system is genetically activated (immune system, cellular repair, metabolism, nervous system, or genetic regulation), the science on that is being settled and will likely take a while. Princeton's Dean of Faculty is actively investigating the overlap between their new Spark study and my theory. I developed this theory through a series of bioinformatics tools, including the development of a human gene coded protein based biochemical network, and comparative analysis of existing data including autistic biomarkers.
Detailed documentation is available at:
- Kimberlyedu.org
- ResearchGate.net/profile/Kimberly-Kitzerow
All the best,
Kimberly Kitzerow
Founder, Kimberly’s Educational Resources (NeuroToggle® & Neurodivergent Biochemistry™)
Neuroplasticity Educator & Neurodivergence Advocate
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