What a spectacular night at the Atlas Theater in Washington DC for the screening of Deej! Deej is the must-see documentary about DJ Savarese, a nonspeaking autistic and his journey to be included as a college student. The film is powerful and a story that we hope will become common for all of our students….
For our final week of Summer Institute, our guest lecturers were Meenu and Sarina from the University of Maryland. Meenu and Sarina work together at the Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and teach students how to think outside of the box and bring new, interesting ideas to life! After the “getting to know you” portion…
GKTC Summer Institute kicked off the summer exploring multimedia journalism: photography, videography, television, and radio. The past two weeks in Summer Institute was all about media in a different context… A R T! Liz Michaels, GKTC’s longterm intern, is also an art instructor and led us in a discussion about types of art: fine art…
I am so excited to introduce Diane Belnavis and Brent Sullivan as guest bloggers! We formed an instant friendship when I met Brent, Diane and Dylan at the TASH Conference in Portland Oregon in November 2015. They have one of the most beautiful stories I have ever heard and it keeps getting better and better…
Recently, one of our parents asked what to do when her son become grabby and pinchy at home or school. She recognizes that her son has motor control issues and knows that he is not trying to intentionally hurt her but is having trouble reconciling the difference between his intentions and actions. All of our clients…
In celebration of Martin Luther King Day, we are reposting this blog from MLK weekend in Atlanta 2 years ago! Wow! It is amazing to see how far along these fantastic spellers and self advocates have come since then! The fight for communication rights is stronger than ever! ~Elizabeth I returned from my second workshop…
Huan Vuong started advocating for communication and education rights for himself and other nonspeaking individuals as soon as he got on the letterboards. This was his second year presenting at the TASH conference. Due to Huan’s strong advocacy, his school system has recently responded to his requests to meet his communication needs and will provide…
Autistic individuals are the true autism experts. Matthew Lager’s TASH Talk debunking the myths of non-verbal autism is a must read for anyone who has an autistic child or works with autistic individuals. Matthew uses a letterboard and keyboard to spell to communicate. He prepared this presentation for the 2016 TASH conference with his mother…
I wanted to finish off 2016 with one of our favorite moments of the year. Prepare for some guaranteed happiness as you witness what happened when one of our clients was given the opportunity to conduct his school choir. Evan is one feisty, adorable guy who never fails to make me laugh during our sessions together….
Last week we promised more presentations by our students at the 2016 TASH Conference in St. Louis. Ian Nordling is our next self advocate presenting his thoughts on the importance of communication in his TASH Talk. Ian has been spelling on the letterboards and keyboards for over 2 years and is now beginning to type…
This year, four of Growing Kids’ nonspeaking or unreliably speaking clients presented at the TASH 2016 conference in St. Louis! Each of our students gave a TASH Talk (in the style of a TED Talk) and participated together for a panel discussion on inclusion. We will be sharing their presentations with you over the next…
We are often inspired by the creative strategies our families find to make education and communication on the letter boards interesting and meaningful. During a Skype consult, Jasmin explained how she created social and communication opportunities between her son, who spells to communicate, and her nephew. Jasmin graciously agreed to share her fantastic strategies as…
