I-ASC (International Association for Spelling as Communication)

I-ASC (International Association for Spelling as Communication) is a start-up non-profit organization, established in June 2019. I-ASC serves the nonspeaking, neurodiverse and disability communities; their families; and trained professionals. I-ASC is committed to ensuring access to effective communication using Spelling to Communicate (S2C) as originally developed by Elizabeth Vosseller.

To understand what the organization enables watch this video on Spelling to Communicate. 

I-ASC’s major initiatives over the next three years are as follows:

·      Increase the access to spelling as communication by a factor of 20x, enabling 20,000 children and adults to the most effective means communication many of them will have in their lives

·      Expand the number of trained practitioners of S2C from under 50 to over 1,000

·      Develop and deliver web-based education and advocacy in the form of explainer videos, infographics, curated articles, case studies and annotated research articles to speed the understanding of this methodology and its best practices

·      Create and maintain a registry of S2C Practitioners to enable more rapid availability of these services to the general population

·      Develop and maintain standards of practice to ensure quality services by registered S2C Practitioners

·      Advocate in large and small contexts for awareness and acceptance of nonspeakers

·      Support research by engaging with researchers to create interdisciplinary collaboration and access to funding for research on S2C and research that leads to a greater understanding of nonspeaking people

·      Develop a donor base and raise funds via events, grants, sponsorships and donor engagement.

Including part-time leadership, I-ASC has a staff size of 10, distributed throughout the United States and Canada. The full-time staff is headed by the Executive Director (Elizabeth Vosseller), this role, and a Deputy Director of Operations and Finance. In the first year, all other roles will be staffed by part-time leadership and practitioners. I-ASC’s budget this year is $400k, and it aims to achieve a $3.5 million budget on the fourth year of operations.