Words shape what we notice, what we expect, and the opportunities we build. I use more than a decade in speech-language pathology and education to uncover barriers and design support that makes meaningful participation possible in real life.
© BINTU TIAMIYUI examine what a task asks someone to understand, organize, and do—then design support that makes the work easier to enter and complete.
© BINTU TIAMIYUMy mom, Linda, was an educator and a true creative. She saw my love of writing and gave me the tools to “live” in language. She sent me to writing workshops and challenged me to enter poetry slams in high school. I became fascinated by word choice—how one word could change what someone saw, felt, or understood.
My love of language lives in my work as a speech-language pathologist. For more than a decade in the classroom, I’ve worked alongside learners with complex communication needs, attending to the many ways they express ideas and build understanding—even when those ways go unrecognized.
I started by designing session activities around how individual learners make meaning. Now I design for the classroom, connecting what a learner needs with what the curriculum asks them to do. My knowledge of child and language development and neurodiversity-affirming practice helps me make those pathways visible.
Education, language, accessibility, and design meet here for me. How do we make learning easier to enter? How do we make room for different ways of communicating, processing, and participating? How do we ask better questions before deciding what someone can do?
I plan to keep asking those questions, answering them through design, and evolving my work to meet the diversity and growth of all learners.
Both paths begin in the same place: understand the person, uncover the barrier, and create a path they can actually use.
Neurodiversity-affirming communication consultation, Augmentative and Alternative Communication support, caregiver coaching, and professional learning.
Curriculum and learning experiences that make complex ideas usable without making the thinking smaller.
See the curriculum design case study ↓Years in the classroom have taught me to look at both the academic expectations and the learner’s experience of the task. I connect those demands with the learner’s interests, communication, and everyday life to design a clearer path into the work—without taking away the thinking.
I am not interested in forcing a learner through a system that is not working. I watch what happens in real time, identify the hidden demand, and adjust the path while protecting the learner’s dignity and ownership.
A fifth-grade volume project became a chance to design for planning, critical thinking, and a learner’s growing ownership of the work.
One hands-on build. Several rectangular prisms. A path from “what do I do?” to measuring, calculating, constructing, and checking.
The assignment asked for a finished object. The design challenge was helping a learner manage everything it took to get there.
The school’s brief set the goal: make an animal from boxes and calculate its volume. I turned that brief into a learner-facing path with a plan, measurement record, staged build, and final checks.
The completed green cardboard dinosaur brought the math into the room. The fifth-grade learner measured its component shapes and attached L × W × H calculations to the build. Across the project, the learner developed a thorough understanding of volume and applied it to each part of the finished build. The staged process supported independent starts, sustained work, and self-checking.
The project was completed across multiple work periods, with supports designed to reduce overwhelm while keeping the mathematical demand intact.
An interactive experience that helps educators reconsider assumptions about engagement and choose practical ways to increase access.
When a student turns off a camera, looks away, or moves during a virtual lesson, the behavior is visible. The reason behind it may not be. Sensory and participation demands can shape how a learner engages with instruction.
Help educators notice possible barriers, pause before labeling behavior as disengagement, and choose flexible responses they can use in their next lesson.
I organized the experience around recognizable classroom moments, short explorations of sensory demands, and scenarios that ask educators to make a decision. The central question keeps the focus on access: What might the learner need to participate?
Regulation supports access.
I’ve spent more than a decade as a speech-language pathologist working with students, families, and educators. I pay close attention to the gap between what a task asks for and what a learner needs to get started. My curriculum and learning design work begins with each student’s learning profile: how they communicate, process, and participate. I consider the expectations and demands of the learning environment, then design experiences that honor neurodiversity and differences across learners.