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Jordyn Zimmerman MEd鈥�21 is autistic and nonspeaking, and spent the first eighteen years of her life trapped in her own mind, unable to communicate with the world around her. But everything changed one day in 2014 as she sat in her childhood home with her mother and a disability rights lawyer. With the lawyer鈥檚 guidance, Zimmerman slowly dragged her finger across the screen of an iPad, selecting pictures and letters that represented how she was feeling. Suddenly, she was articulating her thoughts for the first time.

Ten years later, Zimmerman has become a powerful champion for disability rights and education policy reform. Her motivation is nothing less than to change the world鈥檚 perception and treatment of people with disabilities. In 2022, President Biden appointed her to the President鈥檚 Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities. She has shared her story on CBS Mornings, and she鈥檚 the subject of the 2021 documentary This Is Not About Me. In addition to her full-time job as head of project strategy at the education nonprofit The Nora Project, Zimmerman is also chair of the board of directors of CommunicationFIRST, a nonprofit that advocates for the civil rights of the millions of Americans who have difficulty speaking.

To her many admirers and her thousands of online followers, she is a living example of what is possible when a person is given adequate accessibility. But painful memories of the difficult path she took to her success have never left her. 鈥淭hat messaging that I didn鈥檛 belong and that I couldn鈥檛 learn, or wasn鈥檛 worthy of learning, really made me passionate about ensuring accessibility today,鈥� she said, speaking via Live Speech, a feature that vocalizes words she types into her iPad.

Zimmerman carries her iPad everywhere, often cradling it in her lap. When I asked her questions for this article, she took a couple of minutes to type her responses and then a female-sounding electronic voice reminiscent of Siri voiced her words. This method of communicating is a high-tech form of what鈥檚 known as augmentative and alternative communication, a term used to describe all the ways that a person can communicate without speaking. Zimmerman identifies as nonspeaking rather than nonverbal, because of her ability to perceive and utilize language. 鈥淪peech is the motor process of expressing language,鈥� she explained. 鈥淚 cannot effectively speak, but I am very verbal.鈥�

But for the entirety of her childhood, she was unable to demonstrate those abilities. Growing up in Ohio, she was relegated in school to special education classes, some of them so under-stimulating that she remembers spending all day playing video games. Back then, her primary means of communication was using gestures. She had trouble regulating her body and would sometimes bang her head against walls or wander off. She recalled people treating her like she couldn鈥檛 understand them, which made making friends almost impossible, and her lack of speech led the public school system to assume she was an 鈥渋ncompetent鈥� student. 鈥淏oth at school and at home, [communication and regulation] were exceedingly difficult,鈥� she said.

In 2014, Zimmerman鈥檚 mother contacted Disability Rights Ohio to discuss the mistreatment she believed her daughter was experiencing at school. A lawyer from the nonprofit met with Zimmerman to learn more about the situation, and became one of the first people to introduce her to using an iPad to communicate. It began a gradual process of her learning to use the iPad to interact with the world around her.

Soon Zimmerman was taking the iPad to school, using the device to transform her learning and her life. Suddenly she could share her thoughts and deepen her relationships with other people in a way she could never have imagined previously. 鈥淏efore听 the iPad, I didn't have the opportunity to show my humanity or engage with the world,鈥� she said.

Zimmerman graduated from high school in 2016 at the age of twenty-one, and went on to earn a bachelor鈥檚 degree in education policy from Ohio University in 2020. Less than two years later, she graduated with a master鈥檚 in education from the Lynch School of Education and Human Development.

Zimmerman may be a civil rights champion these days, but that doesn鈥檛 mean she doesn鈥檛 know how to have fun, too. Tauna Szymanski, executive director of CommunicationFIRST, said Zimmerman is known within the organization for her sense of humor, love for her dog, Einstein, and passion for activism. 鈥淪he loves to laugh and meet people, and at the same time she鈥檚 incredibly professional and wise beyond her years,鈥� she said. 鈥淪he鈥檚 definitely the best boss I鈥檝e ever had.鈥�

In her advocacy and policy work, Zimmerman is pressing for a ban on federal funds used to support the IQ testing of nonspeaking students in public institutions. She knows from personal experience that such tests are poor indicators of the intelligence of nonspeaking students. 鈥淲hen students are given an IQ test but don鈥檛 have access to effective communication, it puts them on a path of lifelong segregation,鈥� she said. 鈥淥nce that happens, it鈥檚 very hard to switch things up.鈥�

Of course, Zimmerman herself has been switching things up for a decade now. In addition to everything else she does, she鈥檚 currently working on an MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology. 鈥淲herever that takes me next, my mission in life remains the same,鈥� she said. 鈥淭o make our communities more accessible and inclusive, especially for those of us who are historically most often left out."

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