Spelling to Communicate

What is S2C?

What is S2C? S2C stands for Spelling to Communicate, but what does that mean, exactly? Spelling to Communicate teaches individuals with motor challenges the purposeful motor skills necessary to point to letters to spell as an alternative means of communication. Did I lose you at purposeful motor? Purposeful motor means that you’re THINKING about something…

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…

Tribe Honors the Mothers of the Spelling Community

In March, members of Growing Kid Therapy Center‘s Tribe began planning an art project honoring their mothers, and the mothers and motherly figures of the spelling community. They decided to focus on plants for the image that would be recreated with donated recycled materials, and the brainstorming began with coming up with words to describe…

Tribe Spreads Love

TRIBE CONTINUES TO GIVE! The Tribe are nonspeaking young adults who meet weekly at Growing Kids Therapy Center and who use spelling as a form of communication and are all highly fluent in their ability to communicate. Growing Kids Therapy Center is dedicated to teaching non-speaking, minimally speaking and unreliably speaking individuals how to Spell…

Open Letter to ASHA by Elizabeth Vosseller

To the Board of Directors: I am writing to you to ask that you withdraw the proposals from the Ad Hoc committee on FC and RPM.  The members of this committee have a longstanding public record of trying to discredit the use of FC, RPM and other forms of typing or spelling as a form…

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,…

Tribe and UVA Part 2: Social Connections and Friendship

There are many reasons why I love being so involved with Tribe, but the UVa-Tribe exchanges are at the top. As a UVa alum, a friend of Vikram (who teaches the course), and as an educator at GKTC, it’s truly the case of my worlds colliding, and it’s the best thing ever. GKTC Tribe and…

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…

DEEJ The Movie: Inclusion shouldn’t be a lottery

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….

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…

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,…