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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.
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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 3: Understanding Behavior at Home
Behavior Is the Language of a System Under Stress
When your Deaf+ child is upset, avoidant, aggressive, or rigid — what you’re seeing is a m
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
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.
Sources & Further Reading
Sources, where we found our informatio, always check our sources and others. If you have questions about what to look for please ask! There's no way to know what you don't know, until you know!
SECTION 9: Collaboration & Advocacy
Deaf+ students need a web of support—not a single heroic teacher. Thriving isn’t about one great year or one amazing staff member. It’s about a system that supports students across all environments, through all transitions, consistently.
This means:
Schools can’t work in isolation.
Families can’t be left out.
Services can’t be siloed.
When everyone speaks a different “language” of support—spoken language vs. signed, behavior charts vs. sensory plans—students are
SECTION 8: Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Safety isn’t just physical. For Deaf+ students, safety means knowing:
what’s happening
what to do
how to ask for help
Without language and predictability, even routine drills or transitions can trigger panic and elopement.
We’re not just preventing injuries. We’re preventing fear, confusion, and isolation.
SECTION 7: Language Access Is the Foundation
Language isn’t just how we speak. It’s how we connect, organize our world, and self-regulate.
If a student can’t tell you:
what hurts
what they need
what they’re afraid of …they don’t stop needing those things. They just start yelling, throwing, hiding, or shutting down.
You’re not “lowering the bar” when you build language access. You’re removing the lock from the door.
SECTION 6: Behavior is Communication – Understanding Emotional Dysregulation
“They’re not giving you a hard time. They’re having a hard time.”
When a Deaf+ student melts down, shuts down, or lashes out, they’re not trying to manipulate you.
They’re in a biofeedback loop of threat response, often triggered by:
confusion
loss of control
unmet physical needs
sensory overwhelm
unpredictable environment
The problem isn’t “bad behavior.” It’s missing language + dysregulated nervous system.
SECTION 5: Sensory Regulation and Body Awareness
Regulation isn’t just about calming down.
For Deaf+ students, regulation means coming back online—reconnecting with their body, environment, and language system after a stress event, distraction, or transition.
But here’s the problem: Most Deaf+ kids don’t know how to track their bodies, much less regulate them.
This is especially true if they have:
Language delays
Autism-related sensory differences
CP or hypermobility
Trauma
Language deprivation
Auditory processing differenc
SECTION 4: Structuring for Success in the Deaf+ Classroom
For Deaf+ students, a predictable environment isn’t about routine for routine’s sake—it’s about nervous system regulation, language access, and cognitive efficiency.
When things are visually structured and clearly sequenced, students:
know what to expect,
can prepare their bodies and minds,
reduce their cortisol response.
When things are unpredictable, vague, or inconsistent, it’s like pulling the plug on their entire system.
SECTION 3: Communication Supports in the Deaf+ Classroom
To support Deaf+ students in school, you must understand how both their Deafness and their autism present, and how the combination influences what you see in the classroom. This section breaks down both disabilities by clinical level and gives real-world examples of what each level might look like in school, at home, and in public.
SECTION 2: Understanding Clinical Levels of Deafness and Autism
To support Deaf+ students in school, you must understand how both their Deafness and their autism present, and how the combination influences what you see in the classroom. This section breaks down both disabilities by clinical level and gives real-world examples of what each level might look like in school, at home, and in public.
SECTION 1: What is Deaf+?
Autism is the operating system. Deafness is the hardware difference.
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