Spellebrate! C’mon!

It is that time again! I-ASC declared September as SPELLTEMBER and sought nominations for spellers and typer to recognize and SPELLEBRATE! We were thrilled to receive nominations from families, friends, and spellers wanting to honor spellers across the globe. The nominations were powerful testimonials about spellers and typers who are making an impact on their community.  We are so impressed with this year’s spellebrities and know that you will be too! 

Last year we found that the spellebrities represented skills, talents, and abilities in four different categories.  Dauntless – those spellers nominated for perseverance, resilience, big gains in motor control/skills, and tenacity.  Ambassadors – spellers who were nominated as community builders, connectors, who spread the benefits of spelling and typing as AAC.  Influencers – nominated for their leadership, advocacy, self-advocacy, and change-making.  Humanitarians – nonspeaking people nominated for their kindness, friendship, altruism, and generosity of spirit. 

Every speller who was nominated is being honored with a baseball card-inspired trading card which is displayed on our website (up now with more to come!) and will be shared on social media.  Be sure to hover over these interactive cards to see their stats!  

I-ASC’s Nonspeaking Leadership Council read the nominations, with names redacted to eliminate bias, and chose 5 spellers from each category to spotlight as ALL-STARS. You will note that the  All-Star Spellebrities will have a little extra sparkle added to their spellebrity cards. We will get to know more about these remarkable All-Star Spellebrities through blog interviews over the coming weeks and months.

One Speller fit all four of the spellebriety categories and was nominated by multiple people, earning the title of “Four Star” Spellebrity.  This year’s Four Star Spellebrity is Wyatt Dutton! You can read Wyatt’s interview, coming soon to learn more about his advocacy and passion for the nonspeaking community.

Congratulations to the 2021 Spellebrities!  At I-ASC, we think that EVERY nonspeaking, minimally speaking, and unreliably speaking person who works so diligently to develop the purposeful motor skills to communicate is a STAR!  We love the opportunity to shine a light on the fortitude, perseverance, kindness, talent, and strength of the 2021 Spellebrities and love to see the growing constellation of stars in the Spellverse.

Elizabeth Vosseller and I-ASC are committed to ensuring ALL nonspeaking individuals have access to communication through training, education, advocacy and research. Elizabeth is honored to serve as the Executive Director for I-ASC. She loves to travel through the spellerverse amongst all the nonspeaking stars!

The mission of I-ASC is to advance communication access for nonspeaking individuals globally through training, education, advocacy and research.  I-ASC supports all forms of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) with a focus on methods of spelling and typing. I-ASC currently offers Practitioner training in Spelling to Communicate (S2C)with the hope that other methods of AAC using spelling or typing will join our association