Foundations for Healthy Spelling
Creating an enabling environment for your communication partnership & beyond
This is the first post of the Possibilities in Communication Companion Series, and it’s relevant to every spelling team, whether you’re on the Journey to Open Communication or exploring Open Communication & Beyond. I recommend coming back to this post, or the lessons in this post, regularly, even if you’re part of an already-fluent communication team.
Key Points & Terminology
This post focuses on foundational mindsets for building a healthy, sustained spelling practice, including:
Centering the speller
Building trust
Presuming competence & reframing “non-compliance”
A 4-part framework for building trust
Respecting the process, your partnership, the speller’s efforts, and the boards
Terminology to know:
CRP = communication regulation partner, i.e., communication partner; a trained CRP is someone who has practiced properly with the speller (no official certification is needed)
fluency, fluent spelling/communication: the speller can reliably, accurately spell out their own words outside of the spelling lesson context, with a trusted and trained CRP
apraxia: in short, brain-body disconnect; challenges in controlling the body’s actions, movements
loops: ingrained patterns of actions that you might know as compulsions, fixations, scripts, routines, etc.; apraxia seriously limits the speller’s ability to control these
co-regulation: where someone is able to support someone else in returning to a regulated (calmer) state
Introduction
Spelling is vastly more than a nonspeaker learning the coordination to point out letters, and it is more than the CRP putting the board in front of the nonspeaker’s face. The mechanics of a spelling partnership are deeply intertwined with a bigger ecosystem of emotional connection and safety. This goes beyond “teaching a nonspeaker to spell”; by healthy spelling, I mean spelling that is rooted in a mindful, collaborative environment where the speller can trust that their communication will be supported and respected.
So this post focuses on how to build trust in your spelling relationship, no matter where you are in your spelling journey.
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