By admin 
Zion Cochran, an 11-year-old nonverbal autistic child, used to wear a helmet because he would often bang his head against the wall each time he couldn’t speak his mind, a scar forming across his scalp.
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The speech device that unleashed his words at four is now often inaccessible at school, his mother, Breana Harmon, said.
“Just last year they gave him one in school only, and it would only work if it was plugged into the charger,” Harmon said. “He really wasn’t even using it throughout the day or anything, so he was going to school not able to communicate.”
Going into the fifth grade at Meadowfield Elementary for the upcoming school year, Zion has been attending school in the Richland One School District since he started schooling. Harmon herself attended Meadowfield, and has lived in Richland County her entire life.
Richland One declined to comment on Zion’s individual situation or accommodation, citing privacy concerns under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, but reaffirmed its commitment to supporting all student’s educational needs.
“Richland County School District One is committed to providing a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to eligible students with disabilities in accordance with applicable state and federal law,” read a written statement provided by a district spokesperson. “Through the IEP process, multidisciplinary school teams, including parents, work collaboratively to identify each student’s unique educational needs and determine the special education services, related services, supplementary aids and services, accommodations, and assistive technology that may be necessary to support the student’s access, participation, and educational progress. The district values meaningful parent participation throughout the IEP process and remains committed to providing eligible students with the individualized supports and services determined by their IEP teams.”
Harmon says this has been a recurring issue each school year.
“I feel like the child and the relationships with the other students, with administration, with teachers… You’re just not really knowing, you’re not able to connect with that child fully if that child’s not able to communicate all the time,” Harmon said. “ I don’t understand why that’s a hard thing to do or get going.”
She says that she began communicating to Zion’s speech therapist the need for a device that would work off the charger and be accessible at all times in the second half of the school year, but was not updated on the status of that device at her most recent meeting with administration in July.
“She (The speech therapist) was trying her best to get him a device that would work off the charger, or just anything at all, to get him to better communicate, but she had to go through the district to make that happen,” she said. “And that’s all. I haven’t heard anything else about it.”
She also said communication has been slim on when Zion uses his provided communication device during the day, and believes that the device is mainly used during his speech therapy sessions, which are only twice a week.
Harmon said that some of the outbursts or meltdowns he has at school could be resolved by giving Zion a proper communication device at all times.
“His teacher called and was like, ‘I’m not really sure, like what’s wrong? He’s just crying for no reason. He’ll be okay for a second, and then he’ll cry again,’” she said. “Well see, if he had that, you could ask him what was wrong.”
Mid-school year she says she brought the device home to see how Zion was using it, but found that it caused more frustration than anything due to its inability to be unplugged from the wall.
Harmon’s own frustration climbed after she saw Zion’s incompatibility with the device at home. In a December 2025 Facebook post, she tagged the district and said that “every year it is an issue” to find a functional speech device, and that there is always “a problem and (it) is barely working.”
She continued on to say that the software on the device seemed outdated, and that Zion’s communication would soar if provided with a different device.
“My son won’t say a word, but will type a book,” she wrote. “Let’s fix this and asap please.”
A switch flipped
When Zion was four years old, his speech therapist noticed that he could identify some words, colors and shapes by pointing at picture cards.
She suggested that he download an app called LAMP on an iPad, a program that allows the user to communicate by listing words next to small descriptive pictures, as well as word endings verbal speakers use.
Harmon, who at that point had not fully communicated with her son, was shocked.
“At that point, I didn’t even know that he knew what was going on, but there was no communication at all whatsoever,” she said. “He used that as soon as he got that. He started typing out sentences, colors, all types of things.”
Zion used the iPad, purchased through Medicaid benefits, for many years at home until it was damaged twice in a row – it was not “Zion-proof,” as Harmon calls it.
The family’s insurance would only cover one round of repairs, leaving Zion to communicate with his mother and older sister through the Notes app and limited sign language for the last “few years,” according to Harmon.
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However, he does not use his phone to communicate at school, his mother said, because communication is limited to Chromebooks and his authorized speech device during school hours.
District policy dictates that unless an exception is made in a student’s Individual Education Plan, or IEP, they must comply with the school’s ban on personal electronic device during the school day. Zion’s IEP as recently as 2025 did not include an exception for phone use, which Harmon said has not changed.
Additionally, written notes alone are not generally an effective communication strategy in an educational setting, with most experts suggesting low-tech or high-tech visual options along with sign language. Zion is also provided with image cards at school, though Harmon said these alone do not allow full expression or social development.
“You can ask him all day and he’ll point out a picture, but what about the context behind the picture?” Harmon said.
Zion will answer questions and ask for what he needs at home through his phone, but his mother says he also has a deep appreciation for music and will often quote the lyrics of a song he wants to listen to.
Both his mother and school documents describe him as a positive kid with a sense of humor.
“He’s a wild boy, he loves to run and climb all the time,” Harmon said. “He’s not really in a bad mood, ever: he has to be really, really frustrated to be upset.”
Shrinking funding
Kimberly Tissot, executive director of disability rights group Able SC, says such issues are fairly common, pointing towards shrinking federal funding and misunderstandings about disabled communication.
When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act passed in 1975, it outlined a comprehensive legal framework for a “free and appropriate public education” for disabled students, but also planned for the federal government to cover 40% of the required funding.
That share is fewer than 12% as of 2025, according to the Congressional Research Service, creating a shortfall of $38.66 billion.
States and school districts are left to make up the difference.
“This happens, and it’s really because special education isn’t a priority a lot of times in schools, and there’s not investment, and so obviously that that is a great concern,” Tissot said. “They don’t have the resources. There’s no capacity, (but) that’s not an excuse whatsoever.”
Richland One School District from the federal government for the 2025-2026 school year, and on autism support and speech-handicapped students from the district’s general fund. Gifted and Talented programs were allocated more than $6.8 million the same year.
Tissot also says that there is sometimes a fear the child will become too dependent on the device, but that educators should start thinking of speech devices less as accommodations and more as student’s primary communication for cases like Zion’s.
“He doesn’t need to be fixed,” Tissot said. “He needs to be able to communicate to be able to learn.”
After reviewing internal documents detailing Zion’s progress and support needs – largely known as IEPs – Tissot said the documents acknowledged that communication was one of his largest barriers to learning, but were vague about how the school would deliver full and continuous access to his speech device.
Jennifer Rainville, an education policy attorney at SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center, explained that parents or even school staff are not always clear on what the district is required to provide to students or of the resources available to help.
“We have to do a better job of empowering our parents and making sure that they’re educated on what their rights are,” Rainville said.
The S.C. Department of Education has a complaint form for potential IDEA violations, as well as an Office of Special Education Services Ombudsman who can be reached at 803-734-2833 for more information.
Additionally, Family Connection is a local organization which can connect parents with a free advocate to attend IEP meetings or other educational resources. Their office is located at 1800 St. Julian Place, Suite 104 in Columbia, or they can be reached at 800-578-8750.
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