Dr. Catherine C. Acotto, PhD, CCC-SLP
"You already sense it. We're going to teach you to read it."
25+ years. 50,000+ clinical hours. One animating question: what is a non-speaking child trying to say — and why isn't anyone hearing it?
Enroll in Silence to Signals™Read Her Story
A failure of framework — not a failure of love.
The years of intervention that addressed the behavior while missing the communication — is the most common story in families of non-speaking autistic children. It is not a failure of love. It is a failure of framework.
Nobody teaches parents to see signals. Nobody hands them a map of their child's communication system. Nobody explains what behavior is actually communicating, why skills appear and disappear, what a Signal Window™ looks like or how to enter it.
That knowledge exists — in research journals, doctoral programs, and clinical trainings that cost tens of thousands of dollars and take years to complete.
But it should not live only there. It should live in the hands of the people who need it most: the parents sitting across from their child, every day, trying to understand what they are saying.
That is why we built Silence to Signals™.
Teaching from last Tuesday — not from memory.
Dr. Acotto still holds her full-time clinical role at a County Special Educvation Program. She still carries her caseload. That ground-level, in-the-trenches work is precisely what keeps this framework alive and honest.
Allie's story became the framework.
Dr. Acotto's student Allie had self-injurious behavior so severe it demanded a complete rethinking of how communication and behavior intersect. The specific trigger: Allie would begin hitting herself as soon as someone called her name. What appeared to be a behavioral crisis was, in Dr. Acotto's reading, a communication failure.
2014 ASU Dissertation — FCT/iPad Study Results
Reductions in self-injurious and aggressive behavior across three natural settings.
"If these results are possible in one setting, with one clinician, for one child — what becomes possible when every parent is given this framework?"
What she teaches parents to see.
Every child she has worked with was communicating. Her job — as a Signal Translator™ — has always been to help the adults in that child's life learn to see it. The SIGNAL™ Framework is how.
See the Child
Observe and recognize the signals your child is already sending.
Interpret the Behavior
Understand what signals mean using the Eight Signal Functions™.
Get in Sync
Build the relational posture and co-regulatory foundation.
Normalize Symbols
Introduce AAC and communication tools without fear or pressure.
Anticipate Breakdowns
Read the escalation sequence and design for prevention.
Layer Communication
Expand, generalize, and sustain the system across all contexts.
Learn to read what your child is already saying.
The Silence to Signals™ flagship course distills 25 years and 50,000+ hours of Dr. Acotto's clinical work into 6 modules and 24 lessons — designed for parents, built on research, grounded in reality.
Includes full course · Signal Community™ · Unlimited Signal Translator™ AI · Monthly Live Q&A with Dr. Acotto
You already sense it. We're going to teach you to read it.