I'm new to IT and to MS word, but

I also have used a (command)(backspace)-year-old for yo and mine seemed to work okay in IT, and I use the "old school" space bar for expanding

(I wish IT let you use hyphens, etc. as I had trouble with the shortcut "w/" for with and "as -n" for as-needed. I ended up putting it in my autocorrect for now until I come up with another shortcut that IT will accept.)