6:30 - 8:30 PM
Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church
17010 Pomerado Rd
San Diego, CA 92128
Please park in the lot on the corner of Rancho Bernardo Rd and Pomerado Rd (Next to the oil change shop). Meeting is in the Lower Fireside Room, look for the TACA Signs

Speaker: Dawnmarie Gaivin-S2C Practitioner
Do you have a loved one with Autism who is a struggling communicator. There is hope. You may be curious, what is Spelling to Communicate? S2C 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. At this TACA presentation Dawnmarie will review all the fundamentals and more of S2C. Join us!
Dawnmarie Gaivin is a San Diego based S2C Practitioner who comes to us with a background in nursing, DIR/Floortime and parenting two spectacular teenage boys, Evan & Trey. Evan (16) is a nonspeaking autistic who spells to communicate and his younger brother Trey (14) is a minimally-speaking autistic who is currently learning S2C. Over the years Dawnmarie has strived to pay forward what she has learned so that other families can benefit from her experience. Especially dedicated to giving a voice to the nonspeaking, she became an S2C Practitioner in 2017 and currently works in a Carlsbad based private practice -Transcending Autism & Apraxia - teaching S2C in 1:1 client sessions. Dawnmarie is also on the Leadership Cadre of a new nonprofit, the International Association for Spelling as Communication (I-ASC), whose mission it is to advance communication choice and access for nonspeaking individuals globally through training, research, education and advocacy.