I recently had the rare opportunity of running into actress, author and funny lady Jenny McCarthy. No, it wasn't on the Hollywood red carpet arm-and-arm with her leading man, Jim Carrey. And no, it wasn't at a book signing for her most recent book Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey to Healing Autism (Plume, 2008). Surprisingly, it was at an exhibit booth at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's (ASHA) National Convention where I had the chance to talk to McCarthy about her Teach2Talk program and the challenges and joys of raising a child with autism.

IP: I first met you at ASHA's National Convention with Sarah Scheflen, your son, Evan's, speech-language pathologist. Why did you attend the convention?

JM: I attended the convention with Sarah so that we could educate all the speech therapists out there about Teach2Talk, which is the new company in which I've partnered with Sarah to produce awesome educational resources for children. I've been on the road a TON the last year, after my book Louder Than Words was released, trying to reach and speak to as many other parents of children with autism as possible. So it made sense to swing on by ASHA's national convention as part of my tour – we wanted to get the word out to all the therapists that there's some new tools we've come out with which can be really helpful for their clients.

IP: You are co-founder of Teach2Talk with Sarah. How did you get involved in the development of Teach2Talk?

JM: When Evan was first diagnosed, I went into protective mama bear mode, and was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to find out everything and anything about autism and what I could do to help my son (Google was my new best friend – it doesn't have the answers, necessarily, but it sure can point you to the people who do have them). One of the things that bugged me at the time was how few parent-friendly resources there were out there for parents of kids on the spectrum. Later on, when Sarah was working with Evan, she showed me how effective video modeling can be as a teaching tool. It helped Evan out a LOT, both with some really important big things (like play – play, play, play, so important!) and also some very specific problems (you may have seen on Oprah one of our first attempts, which was a quick video Sarah and I did in about five minutes, but taught Evan in LITERALLY ONE VIEWING how to play catch the right way, which I had been trying to teach him for months). I was like, THIS STUFF ROCKS, why the hell can't I go buy more of these at Target, covering all kinds of good stuff? Sarah said no one else was doing it so I said WE SHOULD! We started up last summer and have been cranking away ever since, and it's been great hearing from all the families of the kids we've been able to help.

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