LISTEN. Communication First: Jordyn Zimmerman & Tauna Szymanski. Documentary Short. USA

LISTEN
Communication First: Jordyn Zimmerman & Tauna Szymanski
Documentary Short
USA

A short film made by and with non speaking autistic people, to explain to the world that having trouble with speaking does NOT accurately reflect on one’s ability to think and experience everything in the world.

Communication First is a national, disability-led, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending, protecting, and advancing the civil rights of the more than 5 million people in the United States who find it difficult to communicate using speech. Tauna Szymanski is the Founder and Executive Director of Communication First and Jordyn Zimmerman is a graduate student of education at Boston College studying Curriculum and Instruction.

Before graduate school, Jordyn interned at the National Disability Rights Network and completed her bachelor’s degree in Education Policy at Ohio University, where she founded an inclusive collegiate cheer team called the Ohio University Sparkles.

As a nonspeaking autistic student who was denied access to effective augmentative communication until she was 18, Ms. Zimmerman has personal experience challenging the educational status quo. Technology helped open Ms. Zimmerman's world and, in 2014, she began advocating for students through a series of national and global speaking engagements. She has keynoted conferences, written blogs for companies in Amsterdam, and been featured by educators in Singapore.

An avid typist and advocate for all students, Ms. Zimmerman is passionate about ensuring every student is able to access effective communication and exercise their right to a truly inclusive education. Jordyn’s website is www.JordynZimmerman.com and she can be followed on Twitter at @Jordynbzim. She communicates most effectively by typing.

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Astoria Film Festival in Astoria NY is a nonprofit organization that features short films, web series, feature films, and podcasts from around the world. We also run neighborhood film education and mentoring programs around NYC and work to strengthen the existing independent filmmaker community here as well. In our AFFKids Workshops, we guide youth as they create short films as a class. Our programming includes our films, our events, interviews with our filmmakers, interviews with local businesses, nonprofits, and politicians, and interviews with media professionals who discuss their career paths with our youth filmmakers and film fellows.