It’s Not About You: Why Trust is the Foundation of Supporting Nonspeaking Student Communication
- Lisa Mihalich Quinn
- Sep 26
- 5 min read
When I first started working with nonspeaking students, I thought the most important thing I could do was learn the skills: how to prompt effectively, how to scaffold lessons, how to make assignments accessible. I thought if I just studied hard enough, mastered the techniques, and stayed organized, I’d be able to help my students communicate.
But here’s what I didn’t understand at first—and what so many people still don’t: none of that matters if a student doesn’t trust you.
Because communication isn’t something you can force. It isn’t compliance. It isn’t about your clever teaching strategies or your perfectly adapted lessons. It’s about a student choosing to share their words with you. And if they don’t feel safe enough, respected enough, or believed in enough, they won’t. And when we’re talking about nonspeaking student communication, that choice is everything.

Trust Before Technique
You can know how to prompt, how to model, how to adapt curriculum, how to reduce motor demands, but if a student doesn’t feel safe with you, the words won’t come. Trust is the ground everything else grows from.
And here’s the hard part: trust isn’t guaranteed just because you think you’ve built a good relationship. Students may tell you, directly or indirectly, that there are things you could do differently. If they do, your job isn’t to immediately try to explain yourself, as so many of us do. It’s to listen.
Letting Go of Ego
That’s not easy. Feedback can sting. It can feel like criticism when you’ve worked so hard to do the right thing. But supporting someone else’s communication is not about you.
When we center our own need to be “right,” we edge into ableism - the belief that our perspective matters more than the person we’re supporting. And that’s the opposite of what real communication partnership requires.
Ableism in the Room
Most of us don’t set out to be ableist. But we swim in a culture that constantly tells us disabled people need fixing, guiding, or speaking for. Even the most well-meaning parents and professionals fall into the trap of becoming “voices of the voiceless,” instead of recognizing that the real voices are right next to us.
I know because I’ve been there. Early on, I assumed my training and good intentions meant I was doing right by my students. And when a student or colleague pointed out something I could do differently—some way I was speaking over, limiting, or making it harder for them to be heard—it felt uncomfortable. My first instinct was to defend myself. I care. I’m trying. Surely that can’t be ableism.
But that is how ableism shows up. It’s not always obvious or malicious. Sometimes it’s in believing our expertise gives us the final word. Sometimes it’s in brushing off student feedback because it challenges our methods. Sometimes it’s in assuming trust will just happen, instead of understanding that it has to be built, moment by moment.
The Real Test of Trust
Trust isn’t just about whether a student feels safe enough to communicate with you in the first place. The real test of trust is whether they can tell you when you’ve gotten it wrong—when something you’ve done is ableist, limiting, or harmful—and know you will actually listen.
That’s the hardest part for many adults. Too often, when nonspeaking students name ableism, they’re met with defensiveness. Parents and professionals hear it as failure or criticism, and instead of leaning in, they shut down or brush it aside. The student ends up carrying the weight of both speaking up and managing the adult’s reaction.
When my students tell me I’ve done something ableist, my first instinct is still to feel defensive. I want to say, But I care so much. I’m trying so hard. But that’s my ego talking.
Over time, I’ve learned that the most respectful thing I can do in that moment is to stop, sit with it, and reflect. And then make changes. Not because I wasn’t doing my best before, but because doing my best also means being willing to grow. Listening and respecting what my students say doesn’t erase my own perspective or boundaries—it just changes how I share them, with less defensiveness and more openness.
Some adults may still wonder, But what about me? Don’t my effort and perspective matter too? They do. But trust grows when students know that even if what they share stings, we won’t make it about us by collapsing into guilt or pushing back in defensiveness. We’ll listen, reflect, and adjust. That’s what makes them willing to keep communicating.
And here’s the remarkable thing: when my students see that I won’t reactively shut them down, their trust in me grows. They communicate more with me than they do with many other folks in their lives—not because I’m perfect, but because they know I will take them seriously, even when it’s hard to hear.
That is what authentic trust looks like. It isn’t fragile, and it isn’t one-sided. It’s a relationship strong enough to hold honesty.
The Shift We Need
Yes, training and skills matter. But they are secondary. Without trust, they don’t stick.
If we are serious about supporting nonspeaking student communication, we must move past our “we know best” instincts and replace them with the humility to listen, learn, and change.
Because in the end, this work isn’t about us at all. It’s about creating the conditions where students feel safe enough to let us in—and to share the voices that were always theirs.
Communication grows where trust runs deep—and trust deepens when students know their honesty will be met with listening, not defensiveness.
This is exactly why we created Communication for Education. It is the first-of-its-kind, comprehensive training that addresses not only the skills and techniques educators need, but also the critical importance of trust, partnership, and ethical communication support. It's why we offer the content in both small chunks and a full, robust course.
This blog, along with "The Training I Wish I'd Had: Why Educators Need to Understand Autism as a Movement Difference," is part of on ongoing reflection on how rethinking our current practices creates space for change. It is also cross-posted at Reach Every Voice, where the REV AccessAbility Fund helps ensure that nonspeaking students and their families can access this kind of support regardless of financial circumstance. If you'd like to further this work, we invite you donate.

Lisa Mihalich Quinn, M.A / M.Ed. / MBA is a licensed special educator with more than 15 years of experience making academic content accessible for neurodiverse students and learners who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). She is a former Maryland Public Schools teacher and the founder of Reach Every Voice, an organization dedicated to empowering individuals with communication access needs, and cofounder of Communication for Education, an online training program for people who support students using text-based multimodal communication in educational settings. Most recently, she has been working to lift the burden of content adaptation on parents and educators with the new transformative lesson adaptation tool, Adaptiverse App.
Lisa's passion for inclusion and equity runs deep, driving her work to help educators, learners, and families think creatively about how to reimagine systems that are historically resistant to change. She pushes folks to shift mindsets from "this is just how we do things..." and "we can't because..." to embody a spirit of "what if we tried..."
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