David Kaufer

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David Kaufer is the father of an 18-year-old non-speaking autistic individual, Stone, whose journey to finding his voice through a spelling methodology at age 17 profoundly changed their lives. As a passionate advocate for inclusion and presuming competence, David has become a voice for other parents navigating similar challenges. His experience as a father, coupled with his professional background in marketing and storytelling, equips him to share insights on how families, educators, and healthcare providers can create more inclusive environments. David’s personal journey inspires and encourages others to see potential where others may not.

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David Kaufer shares his inspiring journey of advocating for his son, Stone, an 18-year-old non-speaking autistic individual who found his voice through a groundbreaking spelling methodology. This episode emphasizes the importance of presuming competence in individuals with autism, challenging societal misconceptions about their abilities. David recounts the difficulties they faced navigating the education system, including roadblocks in getting adequate support for Stone.

The conversation highlights the transformative power of effective communication, revealing how Stone’s newfound ability to express himself has opened doors to learning and connection. Listeners will be motivated by David's story of resilience and the potential for change when families and educators work together to foster an inclusive environment.

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Today I have the pleasure of introducing David Coffer.

David is the father of an 18 year old non speaking autistic individual, Stone, whose journey to finding his voice through a spelling methodology at age 17 profoundly changed their lives. As a passionate advocate for inclusion and presuming competence, David has become a voice for other parents navigating similar challenges.

His experience as a father, coupled with his professional background in marketing and storytelling, equips him to share insights on how families, educators and healthcare providers can create more inclusive environments. David's personal journey inspires and encourages others to see potential where others may not. Welcome David. This is a fabulous topic of conversation.

I'm really looking forward to where this goes today. So thank you very much for joining us.

Well, thank you very much for the invitation. I'm really honored and excited to be here. I love your discussions and I think this is a really important topic for a lot of people.

It's absolutely important because like you were saying in your bio, we want to presume competence, we want to presume that our children can do so very, very much instead of looking at them in a way, oh, they can't do that. And I know I have several families, several people are really interested in this, in the fact that we're talking about the autistic individuals.

Right.

We shared before as we were doing the pre show that our son, our oldest son is on the autism spectrum. And I also am working with the family right now. And so this information is going to be so beneficial for so many people.

So audience, stay tuned because we're looking for some really great nuggets to be dropped during this episode. Tell us a little bit more about your family, if you would. Tell us a little bit more about Stone.

What kind of was the process with this diagnosis when you knew things were going kind of wonky and what kind of challenges you had in those early years?

Yeah, you know, I'll try to consolidate it. Right. Like it's hard to get 18 years into, you know, one minute, but really. So again, Stone is a twin. We have 18 year old twin boys.

His brother is now a freshman actually at University of Washington.

But you know, for the early on, once they were born, what's interesting is Stone was actually, we're talking really early as babies, infants, you know, starting to hit those developmental milestones.

Stone was actually hitting those a little before Ty, you know, and so once we started seeing some signs when some of this, you know, speech kind of went away, you know, some of the, you know, starting to see some of the behaviors, fortunately, I guess you could say we were kind of on it fairly quickly. We were able to get an early diagnosis just before his third birthday because we were concerned.

And it was confirmed he was diagnosed on the spectrum. And again, as we mentioned before, non speaking.

And he was pretty much completely non speaking until about 4 or 5 when some of the words started to emerge, but basically had been what I would call as an unreliable speaker, being a really kind of piecing together some words, very short sentences, but, you know, for all intents and purposes, really had. It was really challenging to communicate. So the goal always has been to try to unlock, you know, unlock that communications piece. Right.

Again, like so many other people who are in the same situation.

I think I was reading something along the lines of, you know, the estimates are between 30 to 50% of those diagnosed on the spectrum have some type of, you know, communication barrier, whether, again, it's non or unreliable speech. So certainly not alone. And so, you know, got them into, you know, the early education, all those programs through the school district, intensive ed.

And, you know, we ran into a lot of roadblocks early on. So he was kind of in the same intensive ed classroom from first through third grade, which is how our school district did it.

And then they had a second, you know, fourth through sixth grade, separate inclusive classroom. But, you know, we had pushed for one on one support.

We had enlisted support from a local organization, which is great, the WATCH Washington Autism alliance, to try to advocate.

But we were denied, you know, and so it was more and more frustrating because again, of course, the school district used standardized tests to try to, quote, unquote, measure his IQ or whatever, his intellectual capability. And these kids don't do well in standardized tests because they have different disabilities. So fast forward to high school.

I had a friend of mine who called me and introduced me basically to the spelling methodology.

She happened to know of another family who had a son who she knew was very much like Stone, had these communication challenges all his life, actually in the Portland area as well. And she just said she just wanted me to know about, like, hey, have you heard about it? There's a book you might be interested in the book.

So I actually had already bought the book. Ironically, I had seen it on one of the forums and I just hadn't read it.

And so I sat down, read it that weekend, you know, bawled my eyes out because I saw the success that they had come. I was able to get some additional information directly from the author. And he encouraged me. He's like, dude, fly to San Diego.

Because one of the leading practitioners has practiced down San Diego. Get down there, do this, and I guarantee you in six months you're going to be talking about what kind of college he's going to be going to.

And I mean, to me, that was just so mind blowing. Like, I mean, because again, at that point we couldn't even. I said, you know, I'll be happy if he could tell me what he wants for dinner, you know.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, that's, that's where we were. But he was right. He was right.

Wow.

So I haven't actually heard of this methodology. So tell us a little bit more about what it is, how it works.

I kind of left you dangling there a little bit.

So the methodology, and there's a couple, a couple different form slash flavors of it, but it's kind of known as the spelling methodology or spelling to communicate. And really what it is is this.

Again, we talked about presuming competence as understanding that with a lot of these kids, the challenge actually is in their motor skills and their apraxia and the brain body disconnect. So their bodies are doing things that they can't control and conversely, they can't control their body to do things that they want them to control.

So things like talking. Right.

That we know require very fine motor skills and even writing and even some of the AAC programs that are there with the picks, if you can't control your body, you're not going to get reliable answers. So I'm just going to slide off screen for a second because I, I have a prop for you.

Okay.

So I have, here's a, here's a sample letter board. Okay. So, you know, you can see it has, you know, numbers and letters. Right. And really it starts with.

Most spellers, as they call them, start with a stencil letter board with wide cut out letters and then they poke at it. So really what it is, it's really kind of training the motor.

Okay.

How to, how to reliably spell. Right. As you can imagine, just like it's like any other kind of motor skill.

Like again, I don't know if you guys have ever tried golfing or gone out to a driving range and swung a golf court. Right. So her, you know, like Herb's a golfer. Okay. So, you know, right. The first, the first time you went though, you probably weren't great. Right.

You know, there's a, there's a lot that goes into swinging a golf club to hit up, hit the ball perfectly to get that straight drive.

Well, I have a different kind of Actually experience for that. I did great the first time I went out golfing, hitting greens. I was doing amazing. And it's like, wow, I like this. I'm going to keep doing this.

And then it all went away.

Yeah. Then you start thinking about it too much. Yeah.

And then it's like, oh, wow, I did this the first time. How come I can't do it anymore? So, yeah, you know, it makes you want to golf, and then it.

And then it makes you not want to golf once you've already got hooked into it.

So that's, That's. That's the truth. Right. So. Well, yeah, you're. You're the exception, but you understand at least the role that the. The motor plays Right.

In the brain in terms of control. Yeah. And so that's similar here. So that's so. So again, it's the.

The goal is to help, you know, all these individuals get to the point where they can communicate independently. Right. Where they can type independently. And know, a lot of them are reaching that point. Some of them don't, because, again, there's other factors.

There's regulation. Right. Again, you know, the. A lot of the kids are disregulated. You're dealing with sensory issues as. As you guys know. But really.

But getting back to what it is, it's. This is. You know, they say 26 letters is equals infinite possibilities.

And so when I went down with Stone, so we flew down to San Diego, we had signed up. It was six sessions over three days, kind of two sessions a day. And, you know, I'll just never forget the first session.

And the way that, you know, a lot of these practitioners do is they have these.

They just kind of do short lessons about any topic, and they kind of read a paragraph, and they'll spell out some letters or some of the words, and then they'll pause and they'll ask the student to spell. And that's kind of how you start practicing.

So again, you know, I'm going into this knowing that Stone had had really, unfortunately, little edgy formal education. Right. Like, again. But what he got in these intensive ads was just kind of garbage as far as real academics. So my. My expectations were low.

And I'll never get this first lesson was by Benjamin Franklin. So DM or Don Marie was going through it, and she was talking about Benjamin Franklin. And so again, so first, you know, spell.

You know, spell lightning in Stone's pointing and he's doing. And I'm like, all right, that's cool. And then, you know, she asked, you know, A couple. And then she asked a question about, okay, where did he.

Like, where did his dad work? That was in the lesson.

Yeah.

And he spelled it out. And I'm sitting there going, oh, my God. Like, this is. This is working. Like, we know he's in there.

But again, the real mic drop moment, even that first session, was she asked him a question that wasn't in the lesson. She said, who were we fighting in the Revolutionary War? And I'm like, again, just sit, because I'm sitting behind. He can't. I'm not. I'm just watching.

Right. And he. He spells out the British.

So.

And I was just.

In some things that he has been having that he hasn't been able to talk about, he's actually showing you that he's picked up stuff along the way.

He's picked up stuff all.

Yeah, and that's, again, that's one of these big aha moments that so many parents now who are discovering, because now we're kind of growing into the thousand still kind of a relatively new methodology we're talking about. It's been kind of an evolution from facilitated communication to they call. RPM is another for kind of graduated that.

And then people moved from that to spelling to communicate and the spelling method. So, like I said, they're all kind of flavors.

But we're still talking about, you know, a relative population of maybe, you know, I've seen estimates of, you know, 10,000. I mean, it's still.

Right.

You think about the millions, right, Who. Who are impacted. We're still. We're still in the infancy of this. Of this movement.

But what I was saying is, again, everyone's kind of having these same moments, the same, you know, joyful moments of like, man, my kid's in there. I knew it. You know, but now I didn't know how much. I didn't know how much. I mean, I knew he was in there. But again, it's exceeded my expectations.

That's amazing. Yeah. To have your child exceeds your expectations in that way. So when did they. Because that's academic stuff. When did they actually breach?

Like talking to mom or dad or brother or. When did that kind of come about? What did that look like?

That's a. That's a great question. So, again, typically, there's kind of.

Within the methodology, what they do is it's kind of structured because, again, they really want to make sure that, you know, confidence is huge and making sure that they can spell accurately. Because, again, you're talking with a lot of, you know, with kids who are dealing with a lot of trauma. Right. And issues.

As you can imagine, going through your whole life, not being able to communicate, having decisions made for. Right. There's just a lot that understandably goes in. So there's a lot of. It's just kind of built.

Making sure that they kind of go through step through step. So the first step is really just kind of, like I said, just literally spelling. Just spell these words and then they talk about.

Then you can ask kind of the known questions. So like I said from a lesson, like, if, you know, they talked about lightning, you ask them. So it's really.

The emphasis is really on the communication. Once they get proficient on that, then they kind of go into more open questions. And it really varies.

Again, there's some parents I talked to whose spellers have been working on this for a number of months, Some have even a year, and they're still not quite open, but they're working their way through it. Stone is the exception there. He just kind of flew through. And part of it, again, was because I was able to work with him.

I mean, so again, obviously, we went through these six sessions together. You know, I was sold. I remember, you know, crying, calling my wife, and just, you know, she's like, you know, we were just blown away, right?

This is just such a miracle. It felt like so soon, you know, I bought the boards, you know, kind of. And. And DM gave me lessons along the line. She had me sit in each time.

Because their goal, fortunately, also is to say, you know, we want them to be independent. We want you to be able to work with them at home. We don't want you to have to come in here to do it all the time. So.

So we were, you know, we were all in. So I was working with him, you know, as much as I can. And he just within, you know, I don't know.

People have asked, like, within a month or two months, he was open, asking questions or answering questions about, like you said, the family, the. His brother, everything. Yeah, it was. It was. Again, it was amazing. And to this day, again, he still does things almost on a daily basis.

That just blows me away.

That's amazing. So what. So I still, I mean, I'm looking at the letter board that you showed us and thinking about the spelling and things like that.

I'm thinking, well, how did he even learn how to spell right? Or does he spell things correctly or just close enough that you understand what he's trying to get across?

He's. He's very accurate. He's very Accurate. Yeah.

So use the board or do. Are there tools that make it quicker than having to point at the letters and work out? Because that. That seems slow, not that it seems not quick.

Be a good way to put it.

Yeah, it's not fast. Again, you could do a different speed. He's actually quite fast. He's faster on this. So to answer your question, her. He. He also has.

He's moved on to using the keyboard.

So a lot of times, like, if he were here, you know, so we would just open the chat window and he's done this, you know, with Q and A, and, you know, I just. I just hold the keyboard and he'll. He'll answer and he'll just, you know, communicate that way. He does a weekly.

He has a weekly zoom meeting with other spellers from around the country, which is great. Like, you know, they have. They have friends that they hang out with, and they love it.

They finally have people that they can connect with, you know, and again, some of them use their spelling partner. They. They have to maybe still be on the letter board, and the partner will. But in Stone's case, again, he's.

He's graduated to the point where he's using the keyboard, particularly, like in school. So, you know, I'll talk about that in. In a little bit. But, Christina, I answer your question again, they. They learn.

And I guess the easiest way, again, as it was described to me, is you think about, you know, we're so used to just talking. Talking like our whole lives. Like, we're talking back, right? If we had no ability to talk, to speak. Well, we. But.

But you still had, you know, this great mind, this cognitive ability. What would you do? You'd be paying attention. You'd be so, like, you know, you'd be so in tune to all.

Especially, again, if you're passionate about learning which Stone is. And most of them are. Right. We all, again, you know, kids want to learn, right? Like, that's. That's an innate need and desire that they have.

So they're figuring out how to do it themselves. Like, again, we discovered, you know, Stone told us basically that he taught himself how to read when he was 4 and taught himself math.

He just figured it out, you know, basic math. And just, again, you're sitting around and you don't have a lot of other things to do. Yeah, you use your mind. And again, the similar.

Because, like, talked about his brother Ty, who's always in the gifted program. Ty also taught himself how to read when he was like three or four.

It's like, so some of these milestones actually we turned out matched up that we just again, didn't realize that he.

Had said he was there too. Right. Because he couldn't.

He was there too. Right.

What a miracle. And that he, you know, he can now tell you about things when he was younger. Right.

That you didn't maybe understand at that point or when he learned certain things.

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, it's been, you know, I would say, I mean, it's all just awesome. Right. Like, it's just great.

But there's some bittersweet moments in it, you know, like, there's some, you know, some reckoning that you have to go through as a parent. Like, you know, again, when he first became open, as we call. When he first started being able to. I. I forget.

I remember when we sat down, like, first time, because I'd been always asking him questions too. Right. Like, that's the thing. And I realized I'm like, hey, you must have questions for us that you've never been able to ask.

Yeah.

And, you know, one of the first questions was, why did you put me in special ed? Why did you put me in intensive ed when I couldn't learn in there? Why didn't you think I was smart?

Yeah.

You know, and that's a really hard question to answer.

It is, Yeah.

I mean, I was honest. I just said that's all we knew. I mean, that's all. That we didn't have options. We didn't. You know, we tried what we could.

You know, if we could have done something different, we. We would have. And now we. Now that we can, we are, you know, that's what we're doing. Right.

And so, you know, one thing I want to jump ahead a little bit to talk about, because again, this will impact those who are listening, who are interested, who.

Who may want to start spelling themselves or, you know, and also, again, as it ties to schools, is that once again, this was going to be like, should have been his quote, unquote, junior year in high school was in September of that year when we first started. So I gave it a couple months because at first it. There was still a little bit of that. This is too good to be true. Like you just because.

And there are haters out there. Again, we could talk about that. There is pushback, believe it or not, from the Speech Therapist association calling it. All right. Yeah.

So there's a lot of pressure to say, oh, you know, to try to debunk it. And it's really hard to kind of overcome that. But again I was sitting, I've, you know, sat there, worked with an hour.

I mean I'm like, you know, you can't unsee what you see. Like there's no way I'm influenced, you know, what's going on. So anyway, once I was realized, like this is a real thing.

He has this ability and desire to learn age appropriate curriculum. Yeah. I went to the school, I'm like, hey, let's get these letter board in here. Like so he can communicate, he can ask questions.

And we were, we were denied, you know, they said nope. Are you kidding me? No. Okay, this is happening.

I want to interject a little bit here. So my wife was a teacher for 27 years. Our child was autistic.

We, we had him, we had him diagnosed before school because again we've noticed something was different. He was super bright eyed and normal when he was for the first year or two.

And then the lights, stuff that we're not supposed to talk about was put into his body and things started changing and that is like something you don't necessarily get to talk about. And so we noticed changes. We noticed things that were going different and when we got into school we had the IEPs, we had the learning programs.

And as much as the teachers wanted to do it, they also had massive amounts of kids in their class.

And even as a teacher who was in the system, we were not able to get our kid the help that he really needed throughout the school system lots of times. So that's one of the reasons we're highly advocating for parents to take their children out of school, especially in this way.

Because these kids can learn. But not necessarily school system that's designed for the average student. Because they're not average.

Yeah.

And, and some of them are like way above average.

But the way they're treated and with their, with their, the changes in the differences in the way that they think and learn, it's like they will never be able to be brought up.

Oh, I, I agree. And also don't forget the emphasis on the standardized tests. Right. And average.

The standardized.

Trying to use that. Like I said earlier, if you can't, again, if you're dealing with a student who can't control their body.

Correct.

Right. They're screwed. You know, like again, something else has revealed. Talking about apraxia, you know, Stone has helped me understand.

He's like, I can't watch, I can't control my body. So again an example of that. We were talking about the unreliable speech. There are times you'll ask him a question.

Hey, Stone, do you want pizza for dinner? He'll say yes, but he actually means no. Oh, he actually means the opposite. And there are times again, so before, like, again, controlling his.

His motor skills, right, they would give him an iPad, say, and just, you know, some basic reading lesson. And they're like, okay, is the answer A, B, C, or D? You know, and you have to. He'd have to hit that.

Well, in his mind, he's like, okay, the answer is D. But his body hits A and he gets it wrong. So. Right. You know, and they're like, oh, yeah, well, you know, he's in the 20 percentile or whatever. So.

Right.

He's just not quite there yet.

Not getting it. So we're just going to set these stand, you know, his. His. His goals.

Wow.

Yeah. So he. He was denied that. You know, I said age appropriate career, so he was denied letterboard use.

So again, because the speech therapist at the high school is a member of this, the professional association that has put out a positioning statement against. Against this. Like, they are actively working against it. And I'll send you guys a copy of it. You'll be blown away.

Whoa. Yeah.

So they're using this as a reason to say, oh, it could be harmful. It takes away from their in. Ability to communicate independently. Hell, most.

I mean, Stone couldn't communicate at all, let alone independently before this. So, I mean, it's ridiculous. And then again, so they denied him that. And then they denied him that, the education.

And so that's when we finally took, you know, we had to take legal action.

Yeah.

And we pulled him out. Pulled him out of the school finally. Because we're like, this is, you know, this is.

This is ridiculous. Yeah, it's ridiculous.

He hate. He hated going. Right. Because again, they're having. They were having him, like, stack blocks or count coins.

I mean, things that you would have a second grader do, right? And now.

And then you wonder why they're acting out, why they are screaming they're hitting at things or why they're running down the hall because they're so frustrated that they can't say or tell us what they really want.

And they're exactly. That's exactly right. And again, it's kind of funny because again, Stone has validated that since then. He was saying, like, again, he's so smart.

He figured out, like, he would just act out. Not in a bad way.

Right.

But he got to the point where, like, he even did. He. He, like, hit another student, which is so out of character for him. Like, when we found. We're like, what the hell? Like, he is, like, the.

The chillest. But he told us later he was hoping that it would get him. Get him kicked out of school.

Yeah.

Like, he had. There was a method to the mat. Right, right.

Yeah. But again, because he's seen other kids do those kinds of things, and those were the consequences. Right. If you.

Yeah, but not for him, because they didn't again. And it just kind of showed, again, the lack of presuming competence on their part. They're like, oh, must have been something, you know, so his.

His punishment was he had to eat lunch with his teacher.

Yeah.

And so, like, they feel like he would be capable of planning something, like, you know, so. And then he said he would lock himself in the bathroom and start yelling, and they, you know, they couldn't get him to stop. And then so he.

They would call me. And actually he was at a school that literally is like 100 yards from us. He kind of went from one high school to this work experience program.

So they'd call me, and they're like, oh, sorry, Mr. Coffer, Stone's acting, and we're not sure what's wrong. He seems really upset. And I'd go pick him up. Right. I go over there. I'm like, hey, Steph.

He'd just be laughing, walking home, like, you know. Yeah, it worked. And he told me, like, yeah, I just. I did that to get out because I didn't want to be there.

Right. And that totally makes sense now that he can express himself in this way.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I've been kind of quiet because I've been put into my feels for this, because I'm going back through lots of stuff that happened with. With our child.

I'll bet.

You know, our son was actually very high functioning. He actually could write and talk. He actually writes fan fiction and does stuff like that.

But, you know, like, remember we would ask him what he wanted for dinner? And when we first got married, we didn't have a lot of different meals. You know, we were still learning how to cook.

So there was this one time, it's like, we asked him, and he said he wanted a bum sandwich. And it took us, like, almost a year to figure out what that was. But one of the things that we would cook often was a chicken patty.

You know, like the round Costco. They look like hamburger patties, but you put them on a hamburger bun, and so you make a chicken sandwich.

And one day we made those, and he's like, oh, bum sandwiches. Like, wait, wait, wait. This sandwich. Because he asked for it all the time, and we could never figure. Explain it to us.

So, you know, it's like once you get these little aha moments, like where he is actually talking about something. But again, he was. He is high. Very, very high functioning, but we still didn't always understand.

And one of the things that. With him was that he would talk three steps ahead. He'd already figured out what he wanted to say three.

Three sentences down the road for the conversation, and then people wouldn't understand what he was talking about because he was already farther down the conversation in his brain, and that's what he was saying. So, yeah, all those kinds of things. That communication that wasn't easy to understand.

And. And you remember, right? And you know how it's frustrating for both parties, right.

When you're in that situation because you want so desperately, you know, you want to help, you want to be there for your child. You, you know, you want to understand what I want. I want to give you what you're asking for. I want, you know, whatever.

And when you're at that point, you can't. It just. And I just. It always, you know, broke my heart. I mean, just.

We went to a class early on when we figured it out. It's called My Child's different and it hurts.

Yeah.

And, you know, we got. We had to get real honest with that, because having a child that's different makes us feel guilty, makes the parents.

There's trauma that the parents go through as well.

Yep.

And it's like, could we do something different? And when we. Back then, it's like, there wasn't a whole lot because actually, back then, there weren't really all that many autistic children.

And now that's just like.

Because he's 33. He turned 33 in July.

Okay. Okay. So he's an adult.

You know, he's an adult now. Yeah.

Yeah.

And then I had the extra guilt of, I'm a teacher. Why can't I figure this out? If I can teach other kids, why can't I figure out how to teach my own child sometimes?

You know, and it just took a lot of years of experience working with him, working in my classroom, to figure out what I know now.

The guilt. I think the guilt, you know, for parents is a real. It's a real thing that's. It's not talked about a lot. Fortunately, it is.

Again, kind of within this community, the spelling community, there was a Facebook group that was Started actually by Don Marie, the one woman I told you about who has these spelling centers. And it's kind of grown, and it's just, you know, it's fan. It's fantastic. For all the right reasons. You know, the community is. Right.

Sharing those experiences and talking about the guilt and, you know, even though I don't know about your son, but, you know, Stone, like, one of the first things he told my wife, Renee, and I is he said, don't feel guilty. Like, I know you've done your best.

That's awesome.

It's amazing how much that doesn't help, but it does.

Exactly. Like I said, thank you, Stone. But I still do. Like, you just can't not.

Because, again, it's one of those things where I think about the years, you know?

Right. Yeah. So jump into. What is he doing now?

What are you looking forward to in the future now that you have this communication system that he's opening up?

How long have you been working with him now? Six months, you said.

Oh, no, it's about. Just over two years. Over two years, yeah. Yep. So, yeah. So now, again, thank you for bringing it to the present because, you know, it's.

We're in a great spot. It's exciting. Once I pulled him out of school, we were able to get him placed into. You know, we had to do some research.

We found a local private school called Brightmont Academy that were. They were open because one of the things I needed is to be able to take him to a place where he could use a letter board.

Right.

And again, this is so new that most schools, they're like, what were you talking about? And the director of Brightmont said, well, why don't you come in and, you know, we'll talk. And I said, great, I'll bring in Stone. It was great.

This is the first Stone still talks about. He loved that he was part of the process because we were trying to decide, do we homeschool? Do we, you know, what path do we go?

So he went in and the director was like, oh, my God, this is amazing. Of course we'll support it. So we got him in, and he's been going to Brightmont for about a year and a half now.

And again just started with Environmental Science and Intro to Algebra. Right. Because, again, he never had academic classes. And this is a story I love to tell because it was just so profound.

So I remember the first day going in, and the teachers were right there. And from day one, they. They presumed competence. Right. Like, they just. And it's one on one instruction, which is great.

So it's just us in the classroom. I'm there as this communication regulation partner. And so the environmental science teacher, you know, launched into her.

You know, just start going into her lesson as she paused, you know, at one point and says, don't. Do you have any questions?

And, you know, I just almost started crying because I'm like, this is the first time he can ask a question in a classroom, right?

Yeah. And did he have a question? Did he. Did he tell you something?

Oh, yeah, yeah. He said yes. And yeah. I always say I wish I remember what the question was, because it would make the story even better.

I mean, it was something about volcanoes or something along those lines. But I just remember just thinking, like, you know, after all these years, he finally has a chance to participate.

Yeah.

Participating in his education. And so now he. So now he. So he's. He took his first. His first semester of environmental education. He. He crushed intro to algebra. He crushed algebra.

He's now into geometry. He's getting a. In geometry. And he. They added English to his. To his schedule. He's been doing that for about six months. Loves that. He loves writing.

He writes stories. He writes poetry. He writes songs. He has a song that I'll have to share with you, the link that you maybe include. Speech can suck it.

He wrote on the fly. Like it's talking. It's. It's amazing. It's amazing.

That is so inspiring and so amazing. Wow. I really.

Wow.

We've got to figure out how to get this podcast out there for more. People are just trying to figure out these different things, how to. Wow.

Yeah, it really is. And that's why, again.

And I, you know, I so appreciate this opportunity because, you know, one of the things Stone has talked about, what he wants to do. So his goal. So again, what we need to do is get him the credits. He fortunately has credits that he. In high school, he's going to.

Grant wants to get his diploma. And he told. One of the first things he told me when I asked him, what do you want to do? What are you passionate about? That was one.

What are you passionate about? Because I always. He said, I'm passionate about learning. I said, okay, great. And he's like, I just love learning. I said, what do you.

You know, what do you want to do? He's like, I want to go to Harvard again. This is back when I didn't even know if he knew what Harvard was. Right, Right.

And yeah, he wants to go to Harvard, and Harvard is one of the growing number of colleges that actually provides for accommodation for students, a communication partner. They recognize that as someone who can be part of the student experience there. So that's where we're going.

What he wants to learn when he gets to Harvard.

He wants to study law. Oh, yeah. So that's what's good. He wants to be an advocate. He wants. And against, you know, so many other kids. That's where they're at.

They, they want to help non speakers because, you know, they know what, they know what they're going through and they know that they're being denied their rights and they, you know, they want to fight to help help this population. So that's what he has his eyes on. That's his goal is he wants to be a Harvard trained attorney.

Right. That would be amazing. And just, oh man, I can just even see in the future as this progresses and moves on, all of that happens.

All of a sudden we have documentary about Stone and the advocacy and everything he does to get to where he's going.

I could. Wow. Yeah.

You want to make me cry. I'm just like, oh my gosh.

Yeah, you know, it's. Yeah, it's like I said, it is a great story. It's an amazing journey, as I tell. You know, it's just.

And then that's why I want to help also do the same. Right. Use my voice to help educate, share, talk about, you know, this, this opportunity that again, I never knew.

And, and you know, like I said, it's not really the guilt. I don't know what the word is, but again, it's that. That real.

I feel like it's kind of not like a near death experience, but realizing like how close we were to not getting on this path ourselves. If it weren't for my friend calling, telling us about this. Right. Like he was on this other path of. That was just awful. I again, by comparison.

And he talks about. He said spelling saved my life.

Yeah. Death. Yeah.

Not just. It changed my life, it saved my life.

Right.

Yeah.

Because he would have continued to most likely be looked at someone who needed to live at home, be under your constant care all the time, etc. Etc. And now there's that possibility if he wants to. To branch out and go do his own things.

And.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There are so many stories that come to mind of similar things and things that I've watched because I absorb information like in a really strange way. So I watched a documentary about this African boy who was deaf and how his parents all treated him like he Was dumb.

And then he met other people, were deaf and went to a deaf school and realized he wasn't dumb. And just the look of joy on his face. The story of Helen Keller. Yes, that, that's. That that came to mind resonates. There's another story of a. Of a.

Of a quadriplegic from birth, and then they gave him a thing and he was able to type, and he started writing beautiful stories.

So it's people who are trapped in their own bodies and their minds are completely active and open and aware, and just the way they're treated is, like, heartbreaking.

And I think part of that is also a shame involved in that as well, that there's these amazing, bright individuals who are trapped in this shell that doesn't work for what's going on in their mind. And so that that story really does need to get out there. And it's amazing that we're finding new ways to reach out to these people.

And so this, the spelling, the spelling method is absolutely amazing. And I am so happy that you found it and that you're bringing it out to the world.

Yeah. Well, thank you. And you're right, like you said, I think again, there's so many lessons to be learned through this.

And as, I mean, just in life in general. Right. But through this.

And like you were saying, Herb, it's just that as a society, we really, you know, we've come, you know, we've come certain distance. Right. Like, again, I think that there's definitely more, obviously more awareness.

Yeah.

Generally more acceptance of the autistic community. Again, we've had really good, you know, where we live, so we're seeing progress, but we need to see more.

I think that next big jump is the presuming competence, the get go, like realizing that, like I said, it may not look like, you know, what you're used to it looking like when someone's listening to you, but again, like, because these kids are stimming, they're doing all these types of things and we're always assuming, oh, they're not paying attention. Yes, they are. They're paying attention. They hear everything. Stone is downstairs. We live in two story house. My office is.

I guarantee you I'll get off this and he'll tell me. He'll tell me about the podcast. He's listening to this. Yeah, it's. It's incredible.

Yeah. Yeah.

It would be amazing that someday, somehow, whether he can type it and have like a voice activation or something where he could come and share some of this for himself. Right, absolutely.

That we'll get Stephen Hawking, like.

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's again, that's a great analogy. Right. It's just again, and just real quick on that point.

Right, so here's, here's where again, you know, one of the obstacles we're running into is that we have kids who are never able to communicate, who are now able to. And like I said, the presumption was that they're intellectually disabled because of these tests or whatever. Right.

So they have to, they have to overcome this hurdle where it's like with Stephen Hawking, you know, he had a voice, right. And it went from having it to losing it. So no one ever thought much about.

Okay, so that he's communicating, you know, like they just, they know that that's him. Yeah, that's, that's a major difference that again, we're just going to have to overcome as a society.

Well, so here, here comes the out of the back stuff is my wife was always very much of the, of the presumed competence and one of the reasons she actually left the school is because a lot of the political stuff where we had to assume non competence.

And I'm, you know, I probably shouldn't necessarily go this but, but we had a lot of poor children and a lot of other race children and they were given special consideration. Oh, you can't, you can't make them do that because they might not be.

Able to be able to accomplish it.

Accomplish it. And fully abled, fully bodied, smart little kids, but they're being told that they're not the same.

And so even with fully able bodied children, to presume competence is almost considered like racially wrong now. And that also is mind boggling.

Within the school system with supposedly able bodied children, there is still this problem of not presuming competence, of not, not across the board.

Right.

Across the board. And, and it's, it's absolutely ridiculous. And again, that's part of why we do this is because children are amazing.

And if you teach them how to learn, if you give them the love of learning like Stone has. Yeah, Stone now loves to learn. Look at what he wants to do. He wants to make it so other people in his situation can find that love.

And you put these kids in these boxes in school and you tell them that, that they're not good enough and then that love goes away. And then you end up with a generation of children who, frustrated, who are frustrated and angry.

Half of our children and half of the children graduating at the senior level read at or below A sixth grade level, because they're. As soon. As soon as they miss something. Yeah, that's. That's on the national website of the educ. What is it?

Department of Education.

Department of Education. You can go in there and look up the stats yourself.

But as soon as they miss something, as soon as they get left behind, they are now presumed to be less than and they're just skipped over. And so, you know, our whole system is not working in that way. So thank you.

Thank you, the empowered parent, for going, for taking that, and thanks Stone as well, for him wanting to advocate because, you know, if we can get that through at that level, then it can. It can work throughout the whole different school system. And it's amazing what this can bring about.

So, you know, I'm not sure I have a question in there, but I just wanted to point that out as kind of a whole little out of the box what's been going through my mind. And it's like, wow, this is huge.

Yeah, no, I agree. It's. It's.

It's something that we need to raise at more of a national level in terms of how we're going to handle this, you know, because, you know, kids, like you said, kids are. Kids are smart, they want to learn, but kids are diverse.

And again, whether you're talking about disabilities, background, whatever they are, and it's not, you know, the answer is, again, getting back to, like, standardized tests or saying that kids should be at this, you know, be able to do A, B or C at this age is ridiculous because, you know, again, we know kids just, like, people develop differently. Everyone's different, you know, and so I think, you know, I don't have.

Stone was treated like he was an infant until he was 16 or 17, and then in a year or two, he progressed to the point where he's looking at going to Harvard. It's like, the brain is an amazing thing. And once children get that wanting to learn, they can get caught up. They can excel.

They go at their own rate. They are.

Yeah.

Yeah, that. That's kind of. Again, that's why we started this, because there so many people are being left out and denied those opportunities.

No, they need. They need. Like you said, they need the opportunity, they need the support. They, you know, and a lot of stuff is kind of basic. Right?

Like, and it's, you know, going back again to, like, what our initial ask was for the letter board in the classroom, and again, that opens up a whole different discussion as far as why they push back. And. And some of Those things.

But if you think about it, it's a pretty, you know, there is some training that has to go into being a communication partner, but it's relatively minor. Again, it's really about having trust between the speller and the partner. But the districts are like, no, we don't.

Most of them now, very few across the country have opened up to it once. They've been pushed and they've been advocates there.

But it wasn't even that you were expecting the district to train somebody and have somebody. You were willing to go in and be with him.

I was willing to go in. Or we were even willing to pay for the training. Right. You know, because he, because there are already para educators in his class.

Like there are two, you know, paras in there who he knew and could work. You know, that would have been perfected. And again, wouldn't it be like full to even full time, one on one?

At that point, I wasn't even thinking that.

It was just more like, hey, if he had a question, you know, like have someone there that he could ask a question or answer, you know, just to be able to participate in the class. There are ways that you could at least try to do that. Right. But the pushback was so strong and so immediate. It was, it was breathtaking.

I mean, I was, I'll never again. It's just one of those IEP meetings I'll never forget sitting there.

Yeah.

And when they denied it and, and they're, you know, again listing the ASHA statement as their primary reason, blah, blah, blah. And I just was this like, wow. I just, I was stunned.

So, so beyond the education, beyond the learning, beyond the wow, he can read, he can do math. What is it that. That is like surprising? What is it he's liking to do? You said he writes poetry, you said he's writing songs.

But is there physical activities that he's out there? It's like, wow, I really wanted to do this.

Is there things that he's able to find passion at and live more of a life besides just the learning in his brain? Is he, Is he expanding? Where else is he?

Yeah, I mean, so it's more like it's, it's kind of expand in terms of some of the things that he was doing but discovering that he really enjoys. So like he likes to play basketball. Like, so he and I, he, he wants to go out. So he loves, you know, we go going hiking. He loves hiking.

So we'll talk about going hiking and shooting hoops one of the.

At all beforehand.

I mean, I knew. I could tell he liked hiking because I always took he and his brother out hiking, you know, from a young age.

It's something we did also, again, because I knew that was something that was doable for him. He loves nature, but now he's been able to reinforce, develop me, like, yeah, this is what I love to do. He loves sports.

One of the things I didn't know is he's a huge sports fan.

So, again, this is where the guilt factor comes in, because, again, as you know, being familiar with the autistic community, he was hypersensitive to noises and a lot of those things. Right. So, you know, I'm. I'm an Oregon Duck. I'm actually wearing my sweatshirt, you see, and I've just, you know, just a passionate football fan.

And so from a young age, I started taking his brother Ty to Oregon Duck games, like, once or twice a year with experience.

But we never thought to take stone, particularly, because, again, we're especially worried about, first of all, sitting, you know, sitting in a place.

Right. For so long.

Yeah, for so long. The noise, like, we just didn't think it was necessarily a good fit. But there's part of me I was like, I want him to experience this.

Especially as I could tell he was getting more comfortable with different, you know, as he grew and matured. And so I. I took him three years ago. It was finally his turn to get to go with me. And he. And he's. He's writing a story about. Actually now with.

He's in the middle of talking about how. How cool it was. And I. At the time. And that was really.

Actually, this is, again, kind of a cool story, is that while we were there, I took pictures, of course, and videos of, you know, like, when the duck comes out of the team. All the excitement. Right?

Yeah.

And. And he loves to go through his iPad. And so I save everything to his iPad. It's all synced. And it was. This was before spelling.

It was the first time we re. I really could tell that he was connected to us in a. In a meaningful way.

Yeah.

He had pulled up the video and was. And turned it around to show it to me, and he said, ducks game. And, like, that was, like, major at the time.

And it was trying to say, like, how much he liked it. So anyway, he loves watching sports. He loves hanging out, watching sports with me. The other night, hockey season just started. He sat down with me.

I could tell he was excited. I said, what's up? He's like, I'm really happy. I'M really happy hockey season's back.

You know, like that's just as a sports loving dad, you know, like just to have my sports loving son to hang around, watch sports with, it's just awesome.

Excellent. Oh my gosh, David, this has been so inspiring and I really hope that a lot of the families who are listening really take this to heart.

It's like the presumed confidence for one. And the second is keep looking, keep working till you find something with your kiddo because there's got to be something out there.

And you know, if you can just increase their love and their life a little bit, it's so worth it. So thank you for sharing all of that.

Remind us or remind the audience how they can either get a hold of you to maybe either ask questions or find the program or something. What's going to be down in the show notes for people to contact you.

Sure, yeah, just go to my website, it's David coffer.com and then, you know, I've got a blog where I've talked about some of these experiences and yeah, you just reach me through, through the website the easiest.

Excellent. Perfect. Was there anything we didn't cover that you wanted to cover today?

No, no. I mean they're probably.

But no, this is like, I think we covered a lot of the great stuff and I just, you know, I can't thank you enough, you know, again for this opportunity.

Absolutely.

Thank you for being here and for dropping those gold nuggets, those inspiring times and really, audience, please take this to heart and help somebody near and dear to you by learning and exploring and helping grow that love of learning.

Yeah. And again, there's also this guilt towards me is like, did we do enough for our son?

Could we have found more that was going on when we were going through this? So, you know, we, because there's also this tendency to after a while to kind of start to give up, to start to feel hopeless.

But, and all of that, there's, there's all of that. So if you have these children that are awesome like this, don't give up there. Keep, keep looking till you find that breakthrough.

Keep, keep, keep looking. Because right now there are so many different modalities coming up.

There are so many different ways to find what's, what works and just keep going because it, it is life changing for your whole family.

Yeah, I agree.

I say one thing though, again, I think one opportunity that families have today that you certainly didn't, and even we didn't when we're younger is the communities that exist for support that you can turn to and ask and, you know, so I would I really encourage people. I think that's just so invaluable. Yep.

Absolutely. Find an educator that helps you if you need that. Find a parent group to support you if you need that.

And find that group for your child where they feel comfortable as well. Exactly. All right, audience, it's been another wonderful episode. We are so glad that you have been joining us and staying with us.

Please make sure you leave us a like or review a comment. And I don't know if you know, but you can also give us tips to help keep the show going. There's a link down in the show notes for that, too.

Anyway, until next time, we are so glad you're listening. And bye for now.

Have a great day. Bye for now.