FAQs

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 (AAC). The goal is to achieve synchrony between the brain and body. Skilled and rigorously trained communication partners teach purposeful motor skills using a hierarchy of verbal and gestural prompts. As motor skills improve through consistent practice, students progress from pointing to letters on letterboards to spell to typing on a keyboard. Accordingly, communication moves from concrete to abstract as motor skills progress.

S2C is appropriate for anyone age 5 or older who is nonspeaking, minimally speaking or unreliably speaking. Just as with traditional education, we adapt to the individual learning needs of a specific student. We know that all students can and want to learn.

For families traveling to Growing Kids Therapy Center from outside the greater metropolitan Washington, DC region: We offer a launch series of four appointments, scheduled as two appointments per day on each of two days. Over those two days, your speller will work with a practitioner on the letter boards, and you will receive in-person coaching to build your own skills as their Communication and Regulation Partner (CRP). All sessions are video recorded and will be saved in a secure digital folder, along with written transcripts of the sessions, which is accessible only to you and those you share it with. If you’re interested in beginning, please fill out our intake form so that we can contact you when an appointment becomes available.

For families who reside within the greater metropolitan Washington, DC region: We offer a new client appointment that lasts two hours. During that time, one of our practitioners will introduce your child to using the letter board and assess the unique needs of their sensory-motor processes to better determine how to support their journey to communication. We will answer your questions and develop a plan for ongoing services. This appointment is designed to be the first step leading to regular appointments with one of our practitioners. If you’re interested in beginning, please fill out our intake form so that we can contact you when an appointment becomes available.

If your child has reached the age of four, please contact us now to discuss when it might be appropriate to begin seeing your child. We may recommend a consult session to give you some ideas to build some motor and literacy skills to get ready for S2C.

If your child is three or younger, we recommend allowing traditional speech therapy, occupational therapy, and early intervention the chance to possibly work. In the meantime “feeding the brain." You can feed the brain by reading age-appropriate books aloud, using age-appropriate language, and practicing skills that build purposeful hand-eye coordination, such as catching balls, tracing letters, etc.

Nonspeaking is an umbrella term for individuals who cannot use speech as their primary, effective, and reliable means of communication.  Nonspeaking is inclusive of those who do not speak at all, are minimally speaking, or unreliably speaking.

The word “nonverbal” comes from Latin origin and means “without words.”  We know our community has many beautiful words, they just don’t have speech to communicate their words, thoughts, and ideas. We believe that using the term “nonverbal” contributes to the widespread misunderstanding that nonspeaking individuals lack intelligence, which is not true.

A person who is minimally speaking may be able to use some speech to produce a number of words or phrases but does not have enough speech for robust and flexible communication.  Minimal speech is often used for requesting wants and needs or providing short answers to questions.

A person who is unreliably speaking may have the ability to speak, but is not always able to access their speech intentionally or communicatively. For example, they may repeat words someone else has spoken, use scripted phrases, or quotes from tv shows and movies. Sometimes unreliable speakers mean exactly what they say, many other times they do not. The key characteristic is that speech can’t be relied upon as a primary and consistent means of communicating complex thoughts, ideas and experiences. 

We celebrate ALL means of communication! Many of our clients use muliple means of communication - spelling, AAC apps, speech generating devices, and sometimes speech.

Learning the motor skills to accurately spell on 26 letters leads to full, robust, flexible communication. Many other forms of AAC, such as picture exchange apps, use whole words and icons to construct sentences. These methods often also require complex motor skills and even when mastered, it’s impractical to program these apps with every word in a language. As such, these forms of AAC often can’t be used to engage fully with a teacher, discuss current events, or have meaningful conversations with friends and family. However, a person can say anything at all by learning the motor skills to choose from just 26 letters in the alphabet. As we like to say, “Twenty-six letters equals infinite possibilities!”

We offer a series of virtual video sessions, delivered via Zoom, during which one of our S2C Practitioners will teach you the methodology of S2C, so you can begin working with your loved one at home. The first session, “Foundations,” teaches the premises upon which S2C is built. The second, “Technique,” teaches how to use the boards, how to use a lesson, how to prompt motor skills and more. After some time to practice, you can schedule additional consults with our S2C Practitioners to review your skills and progression and provide coaching to get you to the next level. If you’re interested in beginning, please fill out our intake form so that we can contact you when an appointment becomes available.

Yes! About 70% of our clients are autistic, the other 30% have other disabilities; such as Down Syndrome, Angelman Syndrome, and other genetic conditions or symptoms that affect motor-sensory skills. S2C teaches the motor skills necessary to spell communication by using a letter board and is not limited to use with autistic students.

Our focus is on communication versus speech. Research has consistently shown that use of AAC will not decrease speech and often increases speech. We have seen anecdotal evidence that one of the happy byproducts of using letter boards can sometimes be improved speech. Our purpose is to teach a reliable and effective means of communication.  It is important to note that learning S2C is not incompatible with any other interventions you may choose to pursue as well.

Growing Kids Therapy Center is an independent Spelling to Communicate practice and though we are part of the larger I-ASC S2C network, we are not formally affiliated with any other practice or practitioners. If you prefer to be seen by someone in your local area, we recommend contacting the International Association for Spelling as Communication (I-ASC), which is the nonprofit organization that offers training and registration of S2C practitioners all over the world. That said, if you do travel to visit GKTC, we are very happy to work with your existing S2C Practitioner or try to connect you with a colleague near you.