In my previous blog Ground Your Practice in Cognitive Lessons , I talked about the importance of board hierarchy. We do things at certain levels for a certain reason, and are able to successfully transition from one point to the next through rigorous practice while balancing both the cognitive and motor demands of learning Spelling To Communicate (S2C). I won’t go over everything in detail here again, but a link to the blog above will lead you there – and I’ll include a diagram below outlining board progression and the question hierarchy for easy reference.
We start at the bottom with the three boards on Known questions, and once a certain level of motor accuracy is reached and prompts are faded, we move to the 26 stencil or sensory board. On the 26, we start with Respells (when the motor level is tough we lower the cognitive to adjust to the new motor demand) and then work our way up through the question types as accuracy improves, until we get to Open communication, where we have no idea how the speller will respond.
I work with clients with various motor profiles, some complex, and as I always like to point out, I DON’T CARE IF SOMEONE STAYS ON THE 26 STENCIL OR SENSORY BOARD FOREVER! The important thing is that one is able to accurately point to 26 letters – because those 26 letters, regardless of what board they are on, give that individual AUTONOMY! Whoop-whoop! Goal reached! However many of our spellers move to a laminate board after reaching Open communication on the 26, and many progress to a held keyboard.
Quite often, I have brand new spellers come to me, and I am told by their parents that they are already typing on a keyboard, and why can’t we start there? Imagine bringing your child, who types on a keyboard, maybe even your phone, and then your S2C Practitioner whips out three boards with eight or nine three-inch giant letters on each of them! I get it – it doesn’t quite make sense…at first! Perhaps you are someone who yourself is wondering how S2C could possibly be for your kid, since they use a keyboard as well.
Spelling to Communicate is about…communication. And if your child is communicating on a keyboard already, you’re probably not looking for advice on getting started with spelling as communication – you’re already doing it, and you don’t need us! But, if you’re like many of the families I’ve worked with, you have a child who is doing a lot of typing, but it’s not communicative. The individuals I work with get good at the things they do over and over again, and that’s often typing lists of things, favorite YouTube videos, requests that have been practiced, even typing out what someone tells them to type on demand. But all of these things are not communication, and communication is our goal as S2C Practitioners.
In order to reach our goal, which is communication (which comes with a high MOTOR demand as well as a high COGNITIVE demand), we must start with a lower motor demand and a lower cognitive demand, and work up from there as accuracy improves. As we progress through the boards, the letters get smaller, closer together, and as accuracy improves we are able to open up the question types, eventually following the speller as they communicate, one letter at a time.
The good news is that if your child is using a keyboard or typing on a phone, regardless of what it is, that’s some great fine motor! And the other good news is that when they make it back to the keyboard, if they choose to pursue typing as a goal, they will be using it to communicate!
About the Author
Kelly Berg lives in Herndon, Virginia, after spending nearly a decade overseas. In 2017, she was introduced to neighbors with a nonspeaking son and became aware of spelling as communication, as well as a friend of the local spelling community. After her daughter started full-time school, wanting to get back into the workforce and having a background in Communication Sciences and Disorders, she spent merely a few hours at Growing Kids Therapy Center and knew that she had found her home. Kelly is an S2C Practitioner who is not only passionate about helping her clients build their communication skills but also about creating social events outside of scheduled clinic visits in which spellers can enjoy the company of other spellers as well their neurotypical peers. Kelly spent years in the not-for-profit sector and is excited to merge this experience with her clinical expertise in her role as a member of the I-ASC Leadership Cadre. Kelly adds, “Having a daughter, I think the thing that motivates me the most is that I want every parent to truly know their child the way that I know my own. I want to help my nonspeaking clients build their communication skills so that this is possible, but I also want to ensure that every nonspeaker, in every corner of the world, has access to an effective method of communication.”
