Spelling to Communicate empowers nonspeakers to overcome communication barriers posed by oral communication by pointing to letters on a board as an alternative means of communication.

Since January of 2023, Josiah has been working on Spelling to Communicate (S2C) with one of his EXTRAORDINARY caregivers.

This angel straight from heaven has devoted herself to daily practice with Josiah and his letter boards.  She has the desire, determination and dedication to work through challenges and situations above and beyond expectation!

It has not been an easy road by any stretch of the imagination.  All those many months ago, it started with Josiah rolling around on the floor, refusing to cooperate; either punching himself, scratching her, throwing things around the room or hiding his arms up inside his shirt.

Picture a tenacious Anne Sullivan with a frightened, defiant and angry Helen Keller.   It wasn’t pretty.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let’s start at the very beginning…a very good place to start.

Josiah’s extraordinary caregiver and I took an online course January-March of 2023 so that we could each become a Communication and Regulation Partner (CRP) for Josiah.  A CRP is a person that holds the letter boards and provides regulation while spelling.

The class was helpful, intensive and overwhelming all at the same time.  We learned so much about nonspeakers and unreliable speakers.  We learned about apraxia and the brain-body disconnect which keeps many of these individuals trapped in silent prisons.

We learned about presuming competence.  Presuming competence means that a person with a disability has the ability to think, learn and understand – even if you may not see any evidence that this is the case.  Often there is an assumption that autistic people, especially people who are non-speaking, can’t understand what is being said.

We learned about feeding their brains with high intellectual content.   It was fascinating!

Each week as we worked with Josiah we were required to video tape sessions to send to our amazing mentor for feedback and guidance.  Each week it felt like we were falling farther and farther behind the rest of the class.

While other spellers were grasping the techniques and making progress, we were still struggling to get Josiah off the floor and into a chair.

Others in the class were sharing how their spellers were moving from 3 letter boards to just 1 letter board, with some moving on past letter boards completely to a laminate (much more advanced step) and some even typing on a keyboard!

Yet, Josiah was still uncooperative and resistant to much of what we were doing.  We were tweaking and refining many things, to no avail.

Spelling to Communicate just didn’t seem to be working for Josiah.

When our class was over and the videos were no longer required, I gradually stopped making time to spell with Josiah.  I firmly believe in it and know it is powerful and effective and totally changes lives for so many other people.  Just not for my son!

I guess I lost hope.

But you know what?  His extraordinary caregiver never did!

Spelling is a part of Josiah’s daily routine with her.  She stayed in it with him and has worked through all the challenges and jumped over so many hurdles.  She has gotten Josiah to the point where he willingly walks over to sit in his chair when it’s time to spell.

What started out as a 5 minute session (huge goal way back when) has progressed to an unbelievable 20-25 minute spelling session each day.  Together they have come so far!

Josiah is now able to point to the first letter of every word she asks him to spell.  Did you catch that?  He is able to point to the first letter!

It takes a LONG time for Josiah to point to the first letter of each of the words he is asked to spell.  It requires a lot of patience on the CRP’s part and it most definitely requires an abundance of hard work on Josiah’s part.  Many days he breaks out in a sweat, just sitting in the chair, willing his body to cooperate with his brain.

Today, we took Josiah to meet a woman who is a highly trained specialist in S2C.   He was not thrilled to be there.  He tried to leave the room repeatedly.  He plopped to the ground more than once. He threw the letter boards around the room a few different times.

And then, (after a very LONG time) Josiah just stood up, walked over to his chair and sat down.

The practitioner was patient and kind, soft spoken and confident.  At the end of the session, she asked “What was it that we have been talking about today?”

EVER SO SLOWLY, one painstaking letter at a time, Josiah gradually spelled, D-E-S-E-R-T.

He KNEW the correct answer and spelled the ENTIRE word!!!