Beyond the Label: Empowering GLPs Through Authentic Literacy Instruction

This week, I welcomed a new student into my Learning Centre, a 9th grader who had missed being placed in my Maths Learning Centre due to a clerical error during his registration. Fortunately, the mistake was corrected early in the week (10 weeks into the Fall term), and he arrived in my classroom, eager but clearly struggling. Whenever I receive a new student, I take time to understand their learning profile and establish a baseline of their skills. I conducted a Basic Reading Inventory (BRI) with him and discovered that he struggled with even 2nd-grade word lists. To dig deeper, I presented him with nonsense words, and the difficulty he had with them was even more pronounced.

I asked him how he felt about words, reading, and writing, and then asked him to write down his thoughts. His struggle was evident. In that moment, it became clear that this 9th grader, a natural Gestalt Language Processor (GLP), had never been taught to read as his authentic self. We sat down for a long conversation where I shared my thoughts on his language struggles, how maths was the least of his worries given the language-heavy maths curriculum our school employs, and introduced myself as a fellow GLP. I asked if he wanted to not only learn to read but to unlock the full potential of his GLP brain. He agreed, and overnight, I devised a plan to help him progress from below a 2nd-grade reading level to a functional 6th-grade level by next June.

The next morning, I presented my plan to him and asked if he was ready to embark on this adventure. He agreed, and so began our journey. I gave him a package containing sample materials we’d be working on, designed to develop his literacy for the first time. I emphasised the importance of background knowledge and pattern recognition for GLPs, crucial tools that many struggling readers are missing. I asked him to take the materials home over the weekend, share them with his parents, and commit to the adventure by signing the last page alongside his parents.

At the same time, I’m preparing for a high-stakes test that will allow me to “import” my Canadian English Language Instruction certification to the California Teacher Credentialling system (i.e., do it all over again). The adventure script I’ve created for myself (shown below), similar to what I created for my student’s introductory lesson, is helping me organise the overwhelming amount of information I need to memorise about language development—a process that I, too, am learning to navigate as a GLP. Today’s article builds on these experiences and the strategies outlined in my book Holistic Language Instruction, focusing on the epic learning journey we’re about to embark on.

The Journey of Aeliana: The Quest for Lost Language

In the quiet village of Lexicon, nestled between the rolling hills of Phonology and the towering Syntax Mountains, there lived a young woman named Aeliana. She wasn’t like the others in her village. Whilst most people spoke with precise words, neatly stacked like books on a shelf, Aeliana spoke in patterns, weaving entire ideas into a single phrase or gesture. The villagers didn’t understand her way of speaking, and she often felt isolated—until the day she learned of an ancient artefact known as the Scroll of Meaning.

This scroll was said to hold the key to understanding all forms of communication. The legend spoke of an intricate map hidden within it, one that only someone with Aeliana’s unique mind could decode. Determined to make sense of the confusion around her and to connect more deeply with those she loved, Aeliana set out on a journey to find the scroll.

Her first stop was the Forest of Semantics, where the very leaves whispered meanings on the wind. As she wandered deeper into the woods, she encountered the wise old Keeper of Words. He sat at the base of a great tree, a dictionary resting in his lap.

“Tell me, Keeper,” Aeliana asked, “what is the true nature of meaning?”

The Keeper smiled. “Ah, young one, you must understand semantics. It is the study of the meaning behind the words you use—like the difference between synonyms and antonyms, and how a single word can hold many layers of meaning depending on its use.”

Aeliana nodded, already sensing the patterns. “But there’s more than just the words, isn’t there?”

“Yes,” he said, stroking his beard. “That brings you to pragmatics—how context changes meaning. What a word means here, in this forest, might shift entirely when you step out into the open plains. You see, meaning isn’t fixed; it’s shaped by the world around it.”

With this new understanding, Aeliana ventured further, crossing into the Valley of Phonetics. The air here was alive with sound. Every step she took resonated with the hum of vowels and consonants dancing around her. Suddenly, she heard a rumble beneath her feet and looked down to see tiny creatures scurrying about, carrying phonemes on their backs—tiny pieces of sound that formed the foundation of every word.

She approached one of the creatures and asked, “What are you called?”

The creature looked up and squeaked, “I am an allomorph, a variation of a morpheme. You might know me as part of the plural in ‘cats’ or ‘dogs’. See how I change depending on the sound that surrounds me?”

Fascinated, Aeliana continued walking, learning from each sound she encountered. She marveled at the bilabial sounds made by bringing lips together and the alveolar sounds where the tongue brushed the roof of the mouth. There were sounds created deep in the throat—glottal sounds, the air constricted at the back of the mouth. She was surrounded by a symphony of phonetic marvels.

Her journey then led her to the Mountains of Morphology, where she encountered an ancient, stoic figure chiseling at a stone tablet. “Who are you?” she asked.

“I am the Morphologist,” he replied. “I study the structure of words. Look closely at this stone, and you’ll see the roots of words, their stems, their prefixes and suffixes—all the building blocks that form meaning.”

Aeliana examined the stone. “I see it now,” she said. “The root, like the heart of the word, and the affixes that shape its purpose.”

“Yes,” said the Morphologist. “Some morphemes, like the root, stand alone—these we call free morphemes. Others, like prefixes and suffixes, need to attach themselves to other morphemes. They are bound.”

Armed with this new knowledge, Aeliana climbed higher until she reached the Peak of Syntax. From here, she could see the entire landscape—the forests, the valleys, and the mountains she had already crossed. But here, atop the peak, everything was more structured. The air itself seemed to move in orderly patterns, much like sentences forming in her mind.

Suddenly, a giant figure appeared before her—a guardian known as the Syntactician. “If you are to pass,” he boomed, “you must understand the rules of sentence formation.”

Aeliana stood tall. “I know that words must follow a certain order,” she replied. “Nouns and verbs must come together to create meaning. And function words like conjunctions and prepositions help link them together.”

The Syntactician nodded. “Very well. But remember, not all languages follow the same rules. Some, like the ancient tongue of VSO, place the verb before the subject. Others follow different paths.”

As she descended from the peak, Aeliana began to feel the strain of her journey. She had learned so much, yet there was still more to uncover. Her next destination was the Swamp of Acquisition, where the murky waters revealed the secrets of language learning.

Here, she met a peculiar man named Krashen, who told her of his theories. “Language isn’t just learned,” he said, pointing to the bubbling waters. “It’s acquired through comprehensible input. You must be exposed to language you can understand, but that also challenges you. Only then will you grow.”

“And what about stress?” Aeliana asked, noting how the swamp’s thick air seemed to weigh on her.

“That’s the affective filter,” Krashen explained. “When you are stressed, your ability to acquire language is blocked. But when you’re calm, like you are now, the filter lowers, and language flows in.”

As she left the swamp, Aeliana reflected on everything she had learned. But there was still one final lesson to be understood. She came at last to the Isles of Dialect, where the people spoke in different tongues, even though they were all from the same land.

“What is this?” she asked the locals, who switched between accents and registers with ease.

“This is the beauty of dialect,” one said. “We speak different varieties of the same language, shaped by where we are from, our social standing, and our history. Some speak the formal tongue, while others use colloquialisms and slang.”

Aeliana smiled, realising that language was not one thing but many things, all intertwined. It was not simply about rules and structures but about people—how they lived, spoke, and connected with one another.

And so, with the Scroll of Meaning now in her grasp, Aeliana returned to her village of Lexicon, her mind swirling with new connections. She realised that understanding language was not about fitting into one way of thinking but about embracing the multiplicity of meanings, sounds, and structures.

She had found the answers she sought, not in a single truth but in the diversity of language itself.

Final thoughts …

In the world we live in, those of us who are outside the norm, particularly autistic individuals like myself, often pay what many call the “autism tax.” This tax is not a literal one, but rather the extra time, energy, and resources we must expend simply to differentiate and navigate a world designed for others. We spend our lives modifying and adapting environments that were never built with us in mind, and it can be exhausting just to get by. My student and I exist within a system that takes in half of the world’s seventh-largest economy—California’s education funding is enshrined in law, ensuring a steady stream of resources. And yet, there is no funding allocated to teach Gestalt Language Processors literacy skills in a way that works for them.

There is a point where the gap between a student’s grade level and their instructional reading level becomes so vast that the system reclassifies them as Intellectually Disabled (ID). This is a tragic misdiagnosis, one that could be entirely avoided if we simply taught these students to read and write as GLPs, rather than treating them as defective Analytical Language Processors (ALPs). Instead of receiving the targeted instruction they need, they are too often shuffled into segregated programmes, told to bide their time until their 22nd birthday when they will walk away with a participation certificate, not a high school diploma. This path, dictated by the current education system, affects roughly 40% of the population—yet no one seems to care. No one, that is, except me, the lone autistic GLP SpEd RSP teacher in Los Angeles, fighting to provide these students with the tools they need to succeed.

The unfortunate reality is that the system has made a choice to neglect this cohort. It has chosen not to provide the necessary scaffolding for their literacy development, and in doing so, it has robbed them of their potential. I urge you to share this story with your friends, your colleagues, and anyone who might be able to influence change. My book, Holistic Language Instruction, is the only one of its kind that teaches teachers how to instruct both GLPs and ALPs in the same classroom - across all age groups. Whilst I am thrilled to share this knowledge, it’s a profound shame that mine is the only book on the subject. This is a conversation we need to have—before more students are left behind, not for a lack of potential, but for a lack of understanding and care.