We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jasmine Simmons a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jasmine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Totally AUsome, Totally Jace (TauTJace) is dedicated to my four year old autistic son Jaceion affectionately known as “Jace”. Our motto is to Accept, Love, Advocate, and Educate. TauTJace launched in January 2024 but Jaceion’s journey started long before then. At age one, I noticed Jaceion had not reached certain milestones and I knew about late bloomers but my gut told me this was different. As a graduate of Child Development and Family Studies, a preschool teacher, and paraprofessional my experience wouldn’t allow me to not search for answers. So I began advocating for Jaceion to be evaluated for Early steps which is an early intervention program in Louisiana which is where we are originally from. It was at 18 months Jaceion was determined to have a speech delay which meant he needed speech therapy and it was later determined that he would need occupational therapy as well. Through the course of have amazing therapy sessions he flourished. We moved to Houston in October of 2021 due a hurricane that destroyed our home and that caused Jaceion to regress severely due to not having his daily routine and his familiar surroundings. At the age of 3 he was officially diagnosed with autism and was considered “high functioning”. I became an Registered Behavioral Therapist for the ABA field and there I learned how to better help my son on his autistic journey. TauTJace is cultivated with kiddos, their parents, their caregivers and professionals whom work with autistic individuals in mind. I host monthly zoom meetings and we talk about various topics within the autistic community as well as create a safe space for individuals to talk without judgment. We also have a support group on Facebook called Totally AUsome Village. One of Jaceion’s favorite parts about this business is the autism apparel because he loves getting dressed and taking pictures. His website is www.tautjace.com. We created several different characters a symbolic bear, symbolic puzzle piece, symbolic heart and various females and males of different ethnicities that represent the autistic community. We also have support apparel for advocates, supporters and professional within the autistic/neurodivergent field. On Jaceion’s socials we share videos of his speech therapy sessions, our after school table times, his cooking skills, the great times as well as the hard times of our journey. I intend to continue use our platforms to bring not only awareness but acceptance to the autistic community.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I graduated with a degree in Child Development and Family Studies from Southern University in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2019 and became certified in 2021 as a Registered Behavioral Therapist in the ABA field. I have many years of experience in the childcare industry as an early headstart lead teacher, daycare lead teacher, and as a paraprofessional from grades PreK to 12th grade. I am also the creator of It Takes A Village Edu @ittakesavillageedu where I create learning tools and binders helpful for kiddos prek to about grade 1.

Throughout this journey of becoming a AUsome mom I have discovered that there are many parents, caregivers, and teachers just like me who are confused on what steps to take to make sure kiddos havd the adequate amount of care, help, and constant communication they need. I went through the parent guilt of feeling that I was the cause of my son’s diagnoses. I go through the good and bad days just like you do too so I decided to become an advocate for our kiddos and those who care for them as well.

Within Totally Ausome, Totally Jace I host monthly safe space meetings where we talk about different topics concerning autism as well as just parenthood in general. On Jaceion’s socials I post videos of him in the past from speech therapy and videos of him now whether that be of him cooking, doing afterschool reviews or just a family fun day. We sell autism awareness t-shirts for everyone apart of our village such as (autistic kiddos, parents, caregivers, professionals whom work with them as well).

What I am most proud of is the interaction I get from people when they say they’ve learned something from me. While I may not know everything, I try to give what I know and then find out resources for what I don’t know. I’m proud that people get to see what advocating for your child gets you (positive results). I’m proud that people know Jaceion and how wonderful he is.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

For Jaceion’s tshirt line I actually created all of his designs, print and press the shirts with my heat press myself. I am also the owner of Jass Breion Creations where I create t-shirts, party favors, decorate for events and so much more. Being creative is kind of my thing and I’ve been doing that aspect of my business for almost 10 years now. So, rightfully when I decided to create Jaceion’s brand I had to think of a way to bring in money as well and from there the t-shirt was born.

What sets us apart is the creativity into the shirts. When I was thinking of things to put on his shirts I thought it would be a good idea to create three characters to start off with : Jaceion holding a teddy bear that has a colorful heart made out of puzzle pieces, Beary which was a teddy bear with a colorful heart made out of puzzle pieces and Nevaeh was our girl character who was holding a teddy bear with a colorful heart made out of puzzle pieces. All three characters had to have something in common to show unions which was the bear and the puzzle piece heart. The bear and heart represents comfort, a sense of peace, a sense of belonging and love which is what we want our autistic kiddos to have. From there I launched our next 14 characters of female and male and of different ethnicities because autism has no color or specific region. I wanted to show that autism effects many different communities but we all love them the same.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

The way I keep in touch with my supporters whom I call our “Totally Ausome Family” is by regularly asking questions on our social media pages for engagement. We also have a Facebook group called “Totally Ausome Family” where we keep in touch, ask questions, share resources, post pictures of our kids and so much more. For our customers who purchase shirts from our website we send out emails to them with coupon codes and thank you e-cards. When Jaceion and I make videos/content we make sure we say things like “Totally AUsome” or “AUsome Family” things of that nature so that when people think of autism advocate or autism family or if they need autistic advice they think of Totally AUsome, Totally Jace the brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tautjace.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/tautjace
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61554909887060&mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Other: Private Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/share/7MAVA31MwjWDJe1c/?mibextid=lOuIew