Savy's 2 cents

Welcome to the Map Maker Blog—your trusted source for expert insights, family guidance, and real-world strategies focused on Deaf+ individuals. Whether you’re a parent, educator, therapist, or support staff, our blog brings together trauma-informed practices, inclusive education tools, and language-first approaches designed for Deaf and autistic children and adults.

Our posts cover topics like behavior as communication, setting up visual supports, trauma recovery in nonspeaking individuals, supporting executive function, language deprivation, and building inclusive environments in homes, schools, and adult care settings.

With a foundation in evidence-based strategies and lived experience, Map Maker’s blog helps you understand the "why" behind challenging behaviors and gives you practical tools for creating connection, structure, and success. Every article is written with Deaf+ needs in mind—centered around autonomy, accessibility, and belonging.

brain tree as we learn and grow together

When You Feel Triggered: Parenting from a Response, Not a Reaction

Too many behavior plans fail because they’re written on top of an empty language system. You can’t reinforce words that don’t exist yet. You can’t expect expressive regulation from a child who can’t yet name their experience. And you can’t punish a body for trying to scream what the hands were never taught to say. Language scaffolding is the intervention. For families. For classrooms. For communities. For kids who have waited too long for someone to speak their language—and

Paying Off Old Debts: How Connective Tissue, PTSD, and Muscle Memory Shape Deaf+ and Autistic Responses

🔁 Paying Off Old Debts: How Connective Tissue, PTSD, and Muscle Memory Shape Deaf+ and Autistic Responses Some behaviors aren’t learned...

Misfires & Memory

Misfires & Memory: Why Sign Language, Visuals, and Predictable Transitions Change Everything for Deaf+ and Autistic Kids Behavior is...

Emotion Regulation First and Foremost

🧠 Learning to Drive the Meat Suit: Why Physiological Regulation Must Come Before Academics “You can’t download software if the system...

Section 6: Therapies, Medical Navigation, and Home Advocacy

Therapies should build access, not compliance. The goal of therapy isn’t to make your child “less autistic.” It’s to For Deaf+ children, dysregulation isn’t a moment — it’s a nervous system pattern. They’re not overreacting. They’re overloading. They’re not seeking attention. They’re seeking control. They’re not being defiant. Their body is stuck in a state of fight, flight, or freeze. You can’t discipline a body out of crisis. You can only regulate it, support it, and th

Section 5: Daily Regulation Tools and Home Environments

Regulation is not a reward. It is survival. For Deaf+ children, dysregulation isn’t a moment — it’s a nervous system pattern. They’re not overreacting. They’re overloading. They’re not seeking attention. They’re seeking control. They’re not being defiant. Their body is stuck in a state of fight, flight, or freeze. You can’t discipline a body out of crisis. You can only regulate it, support it, and then build it forward.

Section 4: Routines, Visuals, and Daily Structure

Structure isn’t rigidity. It’s clarity. A neurotypical child often learns through overhearing, prompting, and routine exposure. But a Deaf+ child — with a different operating system and no audio input — needs the world mapped out visually, predictably, and physically in order to participate, regulate, and eventually act independently. Think of routine as an app shortcut: Without it, they’re digging through dozens of unfamiliar files. With it, they click and go.

Section 2: Language Access at Home

Language is the Software. Visual is the System. Your child’s operating system is autistic. That means: Their processing is unique. Their sensory input is custom-wired. Their ability to interpret, predict, and respond depends on a visual language environment they can actually access. For Deaf+ children, sign language isn’t optional. It’s the only way to install functional language on the OS.