Testimonials Spellers and MOB Family
FEATURING GREATNESS
Angelo
In March of 2021 Honey Wolters Rinicella sent my family a book “Underestimated An Autism Miracle.” After reading the book my husband and I had to take another leap of faith and see if my son was “In there.” I would have to say every parent of a non speaking child spends more time banging their head against the wall trying to figure out if their child is in fact “In there” than we care to admit. This mental battle is not foreign to families with children who have special needs. In May of 2021 Angelo and I Visited Tampa, Florida and had our first spelling session. Boom! Day one ☝🏼 he spelled word after word, answered question after question, and showed he was “in there” and his brain was fully intact. Before spelling Angelo was labeled with “low functioning, nonverbal, autism. He was in a secluded Special Ed classroom from 3 years old until 15 1/2 years old. His body was never able to show he was “in there.” His Brain was able to absorb everything his ears heard and his eyes saw. Angelo was self taught, self managed, and self made (like so many non speaking people are). Until spelling I never knew his level of intelligence, I never knew his level of emotional and spiritual maturity that he had obtained over his 15 years of silence. We continued to visit Tampa for spelling intensives for over a year. Everyone around Angelo was impacted by what they encountered when they saw Angelo spell. I cannot thank Honey enough.
In July of 2021 Angelo’s family started a nonprofit organization “Angelo’s Angels For Autism”(which was renamed Angelo’s Angels For Communication in December of 2023) to help provide access to reliable communication and education for non speaking students in the Ohio area. Angelo founded Mind Over Body Motor Gym in Aurora, Ohio. Where non speaking individuals are not only given access to communication but, also educating each individual with grade and age appropriate curriculum while preparing each student to carry their education beyond high school. Changing the narrative and shifting the paradigm one letter at a time by using purposeful motor movements to create synchrony between the brain and body. Angelo‘s journey and achievements have brought awareness to the Cleveland area and impacted many families of non speaking individuals and inspired others to become trained certified spelling to communicate practitioners which alleviates the deficit of trained practitioners that our family encountered when we began our communication journey. God placed the burden on my family’s heart to share the truth with churches in the Cleveland area and surrounding cities. For years my family did not attend church or would sit in the hallway outside of the sanctuary with Angelo. The older Angelo got the bigger the gap was. It wasn’t until we found spelling and our son was able to communicate his need to be in church and be with his peers in the youth group that we truly felt that void. Knowing that my son is not the only non speaking believer we met with our church leaders and shared about how Angelo communicates and how they could support Angelo along with our family. Immediately we jumped on board together, our heart is to spread awareness to church leaders in our area and help give people like Angelo a church home to build their faith and church community. Set yourself apart! Be the leader that is called to bring this truth back to the needs in your community. Because we know you care about your special needs community, please contact us today to set up a time for us to share how God is bringing new levels of freedom to the nonspeaking, unreliably speaking, and minimally speaking community.
Josh
Spelling 2 Communicate has been the best thing that happened to us in 2023. Josh is 20 years old and non-speaking. He has Down syndrome and is on the autism spectrum. He does have some limited ways to communicate, but most of the time we are left guessing. I have learned over the years that he comprehends everything, just can’t express himself.
Fast-forward to this past April, when my good friends Susie and Taryl attended a viewing of the Spellers movie. They said Josh came to their minds immediately and told me all about S2C. Josh and I met Katy shortly after that and she even did an introductory spelling session with him. During that very first session Josh caught a spelling error! We began meeting with Katy weekly in July, and even at this early stage have seen a profound shift in Josh’s ability to communicate. Both Katy and I have glimpsed Josh’s bank of knowledge and witnessed the profound and poetic things he’s said via his letter board. I spell with Josh daily, and we meet with Katy weekly. With every session, we are witnessing him break down barriers and inch closer to open communication. We are filled with anticipation for the day when open communication will finally be unlocked for him. The journey thus far has been filled with great discoveries and great joy. We are immensely grateful to Katy for sharing her expertise with us and for her commitment to enabling Josh to communicate fluently for the first time in his life. The hope and possibility that Spelling to Communicate has given to Josh is a gift we never knew would be there for him. We are beyond excited to see what’s next.
Sage
Dan and I were blessed with an amazing boy. Sage is 8 years old. He was diagnosed with Autism when he was 2 and a half years old. Words cannot express how proud we are of him. He is a compassionate, funny, loving, intelligent, joyful young man who we are so blessed to call our son. Sage is a minimal speaker and has difficulty with communication. Over the years we have seen countless speech therapists, physicians, and specialists who have never been able to see what Dan and I see everyday with our wonderful child and have always underestimated Sage’s abilities because of his diagnosis of Autism and his difficulties with speech. We would always get the never ending “shoulder shrug” answers regarding what Autism is, and to this day we feel there are still people out there that believe it is a cognitive issue. One encounter that Dan and I will never forget is when we were told to just speak in phrases with our son, because that’s the way he communicates and this individual also made a comment that our son will have his “little job” when he gets older. My son is capable of anything, and as long as Dan and I are alive, we will do everything in our power to give him the best life he can have and like any parent, help him become successful and achieve his dreams.
We prayed every day that there was someone or some other option out there that could give our son the help and support he needed to improve his communication skills. One day I received a call from my parents, telling me that my Aunt Marie was going to a fundraiser for Autism and wanted to know if we would like to come. We thank God every day for our amazing family and how loving and supportive they always are. Melodie Reboira who is the founder of the Angelo’s Angels for Communication Organization, who was also running the fundraiser personally reached out to me when my family informed her of our Sage, and I could tell just by her text message, how sincere and compassionate she is and wanting to help and tell us about the Mind Over Body Program, and what an impact it has had on her son and many others. When I arrived at the fundraiser and listened to the testimonials from other mothers with their children, what the program has done for them, I started to cry thinking to myself, we are not alone, there is a way to help our children, to give them a voice, and to give them hope. I met Melodie and Katie Custer, one of the S2C Practitioners and Motor Coaches with the MOB program. Immediately they treated me like I was family, so compassionate and supportive, I knew right then, God had sent us here. After the fundraiser another amazing, compassionate, and supportive S2C Practitioner and Motor Coach reached out to me, Isabelle Custer. We set up a meeting, and our amazing journey began!
Since we started the program in May 2023, we have already seen such amazing progress from Sage! Not only is he able to communicate using the S2C technique, but he also has at times been able to express ideas as full, cohesive sentences! The first time Katy and Isabelle sent me a full written paragraph of what Sage expressed using the S2C method, regarding his thoughts on a science project, I started crying. Dan and I were so amazed at what Sage had expressed with the S2C method, something we have never seen before. We have also noticed improvement in Sages motor skills, and his conscious ability to control his body and impulses. We are so blessed that we have found these amazing people and this program, and we look forward to the future and what is to come for Sage!
Halle
My daughter Halle has been captivate in her body for 48 years. I am a personal friend of Katy’s and after talking with her I realized that Halle needs a different therapeutic approach to her body and Spelling could be her answer. She has been unresponsive to therapies and now I know why; her body was not being approached properly! As we have been Spelling and her body is being coached, her posture, eye tracking and body movement is starting to engage again and for the first time in her life she is not “refusing therapy.” She is actually welcoming it with open arms and UPRIGHT hugs!
This is a harsh statement but, Halle was diagnosed with “Retardation” of unknown etiology at 11 months when her body was having a hard time sitting up. Her doctor said she would never walk nor talk and due to lack of research and medical discoveries back then, we as parents were left with no direction. As her mother I knew Halle was smart with a strong healthy will and with attention to her needs we found that Halle was proving that her diagnosis was inaccurate; Halle started to walk and talk around the age 2.5yrs. At that time research for autism was only at the beginning stages of understanding and Apraxia was unheard of. So her diagnosis left us with few to no answers, and a daughter that seemed to be disengaged and as much as she was gaining ability she was losing balance and she seemed to not have purpose or control of lot of her movements. We were happy as Halle could walk and talk slowly and was a joy to be around; but over time we started to feel these tasks seemed harder for her and her body was demanding more than it seemed it could handle. Her body was not responding to her therapies, only leaving her dysregulated and what seemed to be frustrated or frozen, depending on the day. We lived a long while with no answers besides “just love your daughter”, and that was easy. I added the belief in her as well and that was what drove me to find as much as I could for her and never stop looking.
Fourteen years ago at 34 yrs.old, Halle was living in a group home with friends, attending a daily activities program and enjoying life. One morning, Halle was trying to move out of bed and her lower body did not execute the task that her upper body took to, causing her torso to twist with irreversible damage; this movement left her injured and in a wheelchair. With no therapy response and no movement to these unengaged muscles her body was starting to slow down to no return and there didn’t seem to be many answers or much we could do about it with no clear direction or diagnosis. So we continued to support Halle with her needs and love, believe and uplift her. Leading us to present time where Halle is still living with her friends, enjoying her hobbies and again showing us herself beyond her diagnosis or circumstance with her new found love to Spell on letterboards.
Now that we found Mind Over Body, I have been educated on Apraxia and the brain to body disconnect. I am wondering if we were dealing with less mental delay and what no longer would even be considered an okay word such as “retardation” and actually Halle was completely competent having a quick intact mind with her body not able to keep up with her? I could see very distinct brilliance in my daughter and her wit and love for this world shined continually through smiles, small words and her care to include and look out for others. With MOB, I have now learned the truth of Apraxia and how the brain is left captive without the proper coaching they call Tuned Motor Coaching(TMC) to execute tasks; due to the brain to body disconnect.
We know Halle’s Spelling journey will be slow as she has not engaged some of those muscles in a long time, but now MOB is able to tap into those movements and Halle is moving again with purpose and intention and let me add loving therapy with S2C and TMC at Mind Over Body. She is learning Age appropriate curriculum, that I am sad to say was never even thought about until now. Halle loves art, self expression, absolutely loves her friends and now she is able to show the world her brilliance through the letterboards. Halle has a new passion and new goals for herself. She is continually proving to the world that a diagnosis cannot hold you back if you find the right people to support and join your journey. Halle is surrounded by friends that care, teach and patiently coach her for where she is. We are all anticipating the day that we can hear her heart openly on the letterboards but are loving every moment of hearing her brilliant answers with each lesson presented allowing the opportunity for our Smart daughter to shine.
Keelan
My name is Amy, I am the mother of 9 year old Keelan who is autistic and nonspeaking. We found out about spelling to communicate, by what I would say, was chance. While at a barbershop getting my head shaved for my mother who was battling cancer, the barber and I got into conversation about Autism and he mentioned knowing a lady who had an autistic son as well, who used spelling boards to communicate. He gave me her number and pushed me to text her, so I did. That’s when I met Melodie and her son Angelo and we started on the journey of teaching Keelan how to communicate using letter boards.
We then met Katy and Isabelle who decided they wanted to start MOB as well as provide Keelan with an age appropriate education, using the letter boards to communicate during school, which he NEVER got while in the public school system. Keelan is now in his second year of schooling with MOB and he has hit milestones I wasn’t sure he ever would. He is now helping put away laundry, throwing his own trash away, and eating with silverware. He can now get himself dressed, and with the help of MOB he has so much more control over his body.
For the first 7 years of Keelans life I didn’t know if my child would ever be able to openly communicate, or express his wants, needs, or even his feelings. We’ve tried so many things over the years to give him a chance to communicate whether that was communication apps on his IPad or trying to teach sign language. Nothing worked like Spelling does. Keelan can now tell us what his favorite ice cream is, or his favorite superhero, and is even making his own Christmas lists. For years we just had to guess, and a lot of the times it caused both him and myself so much frustration. Keelan has a quality of life I wasn’t sure he could ever have. I truly don’t know where he would be without spelling and all the people who cared so much to break him out of silence. I will forever be grateful for those ladies, and for spelling.
