Education for All

Exponentia (the Latin word for "spell") is a school-in-formation, built to meet the educational needs of nonspeaking* autistic students. It was founded by three women with a passion for providing education to an underserved and misunderstood population.

For our students; autism is a communication, sensory, and motor planning disability; not a cognitive or behavioral one. They communicate through spelling, pointing at letters on a letter board to form their messages - and they have proven themselves to be intelligent and articulate. Thousands of autistic people use similar modalities in their own lives, some only discovering their "voice" after decades of life in silence. But in spite of the hope and access this offers to so many, it is widely rejected by most publicly-funded school systems on the premise that insufficient evidence is not yet available to validate the methodology.

With the support of families and private educators, students using this method have gone on to college and beyond. The difference is having people in their lives who presumed competence.

How might your life be different today if your teachers didn't believe you could learn?


Just 18 months ago, one of our students was enrolled in public school and in fifth grade, working on his fifth year of first grade academic material. Due to his autism, he is unable to speak reliably. His teachers judged his mastery of the material by his ability to speak words, but his voice and body were not able to convey that he understood. And so, he endured learning the same things, again and again, while the autism "experts" told his parents that he likely had an intellectual disability. These same experts claimed that the best way to teach him was repeatedly drilling the material until his body was conditioned to respond predictably. 

Many students have similar stories, with the same ending: the schools, in spite of federal law obligating them to provide a "free and appropriate public education," found ways to reject spelled communication. Many of us fought for acceptance, but few succeeded. Eventually it became clear that much time, money and opportunity would be lost in pursuit of a goal that might never be reached. We decided to direct our energy differently.

Today, that student is chronologically a 7th grader but easily handling material at the high school level. He's discovering what it means to love learning and to follow curiosity where it leads. For the first time, our students are  in an environment of respect for their abilities and provided with accommodation where they need support. Their minds are being fed rich material, and the activity of their bodies is fully embraced. Most importantly, their competence is always presumed.

Your donations will allow us to pay for the critical educational needs of our students: rent for our physical location, books and supplies for our classroom, and administrative overhead costs. Specialty schools for autism can easily cost up to $75,000 per year (source ) and it is important to us that we make this opportunity financially accessible to families that already have many demands on their resources. We need your support to make that possible.

This is an IRS-approved 501(c)3 charity, your donations are 100% tax-deductible as allowed by law.

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* We use the term "nonspeaking" instead of the more common jargon of "nonverbal" because to be nonverbal means to be without words. Our kids have words, they just don't have speech.