Letterboards
A Week of EnviroMagic
Kia ora! For the last three months I have been lucky enough to intern at GKTC, where I have been learning so much. All the way from little old New Zealand! What an honor it has been to be welcomed so warmly and given the opportunity to communicate with the spellers in the community… what…
Open letter to ASHA from Emma Budway & Benjamin McGann
Emma: My name is Emma Budway, Ben: and I am Benjamin McGann and we both use spelling to communicate. Emma: The majority of my and Benjamin’s childhood was spent in countless therapies and special education. Ben: Each claiming to get through to the autistic child and teach him or her to be normal, or at…
Open Letter to ASHA from The I&I Guys
Re: [TIME SENSITIVE] ASHA Policy Statement on RPM My name is Thomas Pruyn and I am a nonspeaking autistic who uses spelling to communicate. I am Ryan McMahon and I am a nonspeaking autistic who uses spelling to communicate. Like many other nonspeaking autistics, I, Ian Nordling, have found my voice by spelling on a…
A Myth of Giant Proportions
When I first started working at Growing Kids, I worked with students who were brand new to Spelling to Communicate, as well as some who started with Elizabeth beforehand. Over that time, skills began to build, goals were being met, and fluency was increasing. For the students and for myself, as well! Doing a regular,…
Mindful Inclusion at the Connections School of Atlanta
Today we welcome guest blogger, Michele Kukler, one of our ACTS (Accessing Community Through Spelling) professional practitioners and teacher extraordinare of the Connections School of Atlanta. Michele and the incredibly dedicated teachers and staff at Connections are leaders in education as they include nonspeaking students along side speaking peers inside and outside the classroom through…
Puppy Love
When people meet Buddy, our OT dog, they often ask me how I became interested in animal assisted occupational therapy. While this picture says 1,000 words, I will still write a few more! Well, the journey began when I was born. No, really! My family adopted a golden retriever puppy a few months before I…
Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Summer Institute
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…
Art as Social Protest: Let Us Show You The Wei!
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…
Letterboards, not just life changing.. life saving
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…
Chess Friends Forever
Hi everyone! My name is Karen Dorula and I’m an occupational therapist at GKTC. Elizabeth has challenged us all to jump onto the blog. I’m very excited to be able to share all of the wonderful chess that has been happening here! I started teaching chess in January 2016 after one of my letterboard clients,…
Unintentional Harm: Understanding the Out of Control Body
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…
