How RPM Helped My "Verbal" Child

The following was written by Em, who is the mother of 7 year old Filbert.  She especially wanted to share her story to illustrate how RPM has helped her son intentionally communicate what he is really thinking, despite having the ability to speak.  As you will read, this is a case where speech does not reliably convey the real meaning of what Filbert wants to say.  This illustrates why communication must be prioritized before speech. 

My 7 year old son is such a trooper. Day in and day out he does his best to function in a body that betrays his mind. Despite autism intensely impacting his life, from the outside he seems to be happy, kind and caring. I have done many things to help his body be as healthy as possible and numerous therapies to also aid in his other challenges. For the last 3 years, my main focus has been speech. He has moved from a few sentences, to plenty of sentences which include lots of adjectives. However, he is not conversational.  I decided to change directions after a chat with a friend.  I began researching Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) developed by Soma Mukhopadhyay. She developed RPM believing she could educate her son, Tito, regardless of professional opinions. The more I read and researched, the more excited I became. Initially, I thought that RPM was strictly for what some consider "preverbal" children (I strongly dislike all the labeling). Then I stumbled on a YouTube video of a child like my son.  Watching him spell on the letterboard raised many questions. Could Filbert do that? Was what Filbert saying always functional? My paradigm began to crack.

Up until my first experience with Filbert doing RPM, I assumed all his speech was functional (unless he said the same thing over and over which was a verbal stim). Among his first few RPM lessons was when it struck me; his mouth was less than 10% accurate, but his pointing to the answers was 100% accurate.

Once I began to let that crack become a crater, my heart sank and I cried for joy. I felt foolish I had missed this and, on the other hand, relieved that now with RPM he could spell his thoughts. I could finally have the opportunity to know my son -- his favorite color, food, etc. Things that many parents take for granted.

We had Lenae Crandall from www.heedrpm.com come to our home and teach us in our environment to work with Filbert. He bonded so well with her and was able to at times spell several sentences.

He spelled the following with Lenae:

NO MOM IS AS GOOD AS MINE. LOVE MOM SO MUCH. NO MOM IS LIKE HER. ONE HAS NO MORE MOMS THAT IS SO COOL. NO ONE IS OLD IN THE VERY HEALING WAY. THE MOM IS NOT MEAN, THIS IS TRYING TO DO JESUS. MY ONE MOM, LOUD TODAY IS MY VOICE. THANK YOU.

LOVE,

ME

There are no words to describe the compliment and joy of watching him and reading his words. Of all the things he could have spelled in that moment he selflessly chose to express his love for me. It's overwhelming to know his mind is perfectly fine; he is just in a dysfunctional body.

This has lead to our team learning RPM.  Now we can daily teach him academics and over time he can master the letterboard with each of us and share his life with our family and all those he loves.

Since working with Lenae we have been full steam ahead teaching him Science, Social Studies, English and Math. He is at or above grade level in all areas. His fluency on the letter board improves daily.

Here are some other things he has shared with us:

What would you find exhilarating? CHURCH

What does Easter mean? JESUS SITS WITH FATHER

What does autism mean to you? SAME BARE. WE WEAK. EYE SEE NUN FEEL DEEP (he sees himself as deep but others don't see it)

When asked to share with other parents about RPM for their children he spelled: WE NEED A FUN EDUCATION. FEEL ME PLAN. MEET JESUS. TEEM VOICE.

What bothers you? WAVY HAIR (lol, time for a haircut, I had no idea)

If you have a child with any kind of limited speech, I beg you to explore RPM and get to know your child. " MY ONE MOM, LOUD TODAY IS MY VOICE. THANK YOU.”

Filbert was diagnosed with severe autism around age 3. He is verbal in relation to his wants and needs, but his personality and intelligence are now evident through RPM.  He loves math (especially challenging algebra) and poetry.  He is interested in animals and loves visiting the zoo. He is passionate about loving others and learning. He is excited for other children who are verbal to learn RPM and share their deep feelings also.

Em is Filbert’s mom.  She heads up Team Filbert and blogs about their journey at www.takesatown.com.  She is forever grateful to a good friend for sharing RPM with them. 

Amazing Teachers/ Guest Blogger Lenae Crandall

This past year I have had the privilege to get to know many people like myself who support Autistic individuals in their education and communication using letterboards, iPads, and keyboards.  Most are also parents of Autistic kids, but a handful are not.  They are a select few teachers, speech pathologists, and aides who have found great joy, purpose, and fulfillment in helping other people's children find their voices.  What is amazing is that they are equally as passionate as parents, perhaps even more so as they get to make a difference in many lives.  Oftentimes these professionals have faced ridicule and dismissal among their peers because what they do is so contrary to what they were taught and trained to do in their profession.  BUT they continue on because what they do works!  The satisfaction they get from their students' success far outweighs anything else.  You will never find more excited, compassionate, and effective teachers as these!  They are the game changers.  I have faith that someday the rest of their professions will have to catch up with them and we will live in a world where all Autistic people will be heard and will be seen for who they truly are.  

Two of the amazing teachers (and there are more out there!) I want to highlight are Elizabeth Vosseller and Lenae Crandall.  Elizabeth Vosseller is a pediatric speech pathologist and owner/ director of Growing Kids Therapy Center in Herndon Virginia.  She recently included RPM into her practice and is seeing amazing results.  Her love and excitement for "her kids" is palpable as she describes their breakthroughs and progress in her blog at www.growingkidstherapy.wordpress.com.  I will feature her in a future post.

The other amazing teacher is Lenae Crandall.  Lenae Crandall is a certified special education teacher and founder/ director of Hope, Expression, and Education for Individuals with Severe Disabilities (HEED) (click here for link to website) which is based in Utah County.  She left a traditional special education classroom to pursue doing RPM with her students full time and has never looked back.  She has a heart of gold for the kids and families she serves.  Many of her students have blogs which are listed in the Profiles tab and sidebar of my blog.  Without further a due, I would like to introduce Lenae as my first ever guest blogger!

By Lenae Crandall

The Jefferson memorial in Washington DC has a quote: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."  One day I was conversing with an educational leader. This leader made the statement to me that I should be focusing on “functional skills” and so math instruction should look like counting while helping the child to brush his/her teeth. I was told that I should focus on teaching my students how to eat with a spoon over academics because parents don’t work on those things with their children. While I agreed that teeth brushing, eating with a spoon and other functional activities are very important, I left that day thinking about this Jefferson quote. I thought, “I will be fired before I ever deprive my students of important skills like reading and access to the world. I will fight against tyranny over my students’ minds”

This quote has defined my teaching career. I believe strongly in the education of ALL individuals. I believe in the capacity of EVERY human to learn and progress.  Being religious I firmly believe all human beings were sent to earth with specific talents, purposes, and with a divine nature and worth. I believe that NO person was sent to fail or simply exist. 

Because of these beliefs, my journey as a teacher has been to do what I can to unlock the doors that trap my students inside their bodies. Yes my students can move, but doesn’t mean they can verbally express what they want to say when they want to say it or do things on cue. 

In the beginning of my career I was powered by the belief that all students could learn to read. I believed it to be the gateway to opportunity to learn to read. Reading opened doors to knowledge and communication. This was my first focus. 

As I taught, I found my students were brilliant. I began developing or adapting tests so my students could respond. I saw they had the easiest time simply touching or pointing to an answer. I found my students-whom many thought couldn’t learn to read (and thought I was a bit nuts)- not only could learn how to read, but many were already reading and doing complex skills that they had learned from listening when others didn’t think they were listening, or self-taught in some way.

I realized since they were so intelligent that I needed to find a way for them to be able to communicate all these thoughts and therefore have fulfilling lives. Where would I turn?

One day I was re-reading “The Mind Tree” by Tito Mukhopadhyay. Tito is functionally non-speaking and Autistic. His mother taught him and believed in him until he could write out his thoughts. This was his first book written between the ages of 7 and 11years old. 

As I read I realized that his mother had figured out how to break him free in so many ways, yet he still had the strengths that come with being Autistic! Where was she? I needed to find her! She had the answers I needed. I typed her name, Soma, in online to see if there was anything about her. I would like to meet her, talk to her, pay her to train me how!

I found her at www.halo-soma.org. She has taught over 1,000 children, non-speaking with Autism who many professionals said were severely intellectually disabled.  She teaches students academics so they can access the world and they also learn to communicate. They start by picking choices (learn how to choose and what to choose) and then progress to spelling out answers by pointing to letters on a letter board (laminated piece of paper with letters a-z on it).

I began with my students. I wasn’t great at it at all at first, but  I was so excited to see them point to their first letters to spell words showing they were reading!!!! But, now I had another challenge. Some professionals thought I was already nuts to believe they could learn basic early reading skills. Now I was claiming intelligence at likely normal to gifted levels. I had to keep on going.

Now I have students who are spelling thoughts to me like:

1- “I read. I can communicate. Mom, understands how to help me!”  

2- Student note to parent, “It is just rotten my own room is so small.”   

3- Student note to Dad: “Love you.”

4- Me: What do you want professionals to know about you?

Student: “I know a lot.”

5- Me: What do you want most in life?

Student Spells: “Help lonely people”

They answer questions about all different subjects. They (I) have work to do to fully communicate, but they now can have goals and dreams for their life. One of my students asked if I taught drama. I told him I didn’t, but did he want to learn?  He wants to be a play writ and learn to act. Being a play writ is a realistic possibility. He now can have dreams!

I see hope in many of my student’s eyes, they are happier, they can have fulfilling lives if they are given continued chances to keep progressing and learning beyond “functional skills.”