Our Story
Letter Speak Services was founded in response to a significant gap in communication supports for individuals who are nonspeaking, minimally speaking, or unreliably speaking in Saskatchewan. This includes individuals with autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other motor-based speech challenges.
Many families find that available services focus primarily on behavioral approaches. While these strategies may benefit some, they often do not meet the needs of individuals whose primary challenge is apraxia—a motor planning condition that affects a person’s ability to initiate, coordinate, and stop motor movements.
Apraxia is not a lack of intelligence or language comprehension. Language is intact. The challenge lies in the body’s ability to execute purposeful motor movements. Because of this, behavioral strategies alone are not sufficient to support meaningful communication.
Through the principles of neuroplasticity, consistent and purposeful motor practice can help strengthen new neural pathways. By focusing on the motor skills required for spelling—using letterboards alongside age-appropriate, respectful instruction—individuals are given a reliable way to access communication.
At present, there is no clear diagnostic pathway for apraxia in many nonspeaking individuals. Families are often left waiting for systems and research to catch up, while their children continue without reliable access to communication. Parents and caregivers do not have the luxury of waiting.
Many fluent spellers who now communicate independently describe having once felt “trapped in their bodies” until they were introduced to letterboards and received appropriate motor coaching. Parents frequently report that after only a few S2C sessions, their children progressed further than they had with years of traditional speech and occupational therapy.
At Letter Speak Services, our goal is to provide an augmentative form of communication that respects intelligence, honors lived experience, and meets the real needs of our children. We believe communication is a human right—and that the results speak for themselves.
About Me
Supporting Nonspeakers in Accessing Their Own Autonomous Communication
I am the parent of a 22-year-old who was diagnosed with classic autism at the age of four. Like so many parents, I spent years trying countless interventions and therapies, researching everything I could, and making the best decisions possible with the information available to me at the time. I did what most parents do—I trusted the systems and professionals I was told to trust. When I first learned about Spellers and Spell to Communicate (S2C), I was suprised that I had never heard of it before. How could something so significant have been missing from our journey? The truth is, S2C is still relatively new and simply was not available here when my son was younger. But the moment I began to understand it, everything shifted. If you asked me what I want more than anything in my life, the answer is simple: to have a real conversation with my son. Learning that apraxia can affect the entire body—not just speech—was a turning point. It explained so much of what I had witnessed for years. Nonspeakers who are now communicating began advocating for others like themselves, often saying, “I’m not special.” Using a letterboard, they explained, is something many nonspeakers can learn to do with the support of a trained Communication Regulation Partner (CRP). When I saw what my own son was able to do on the letterboard, I realized just how much he had been absorbing all along. His understanding had always been there. What was missing was a reliable way for him to show it. That realization changed everything for me—and made it impossible not to want this same opportunity for other families. I completed the S2C training online and traveled to Atlanta for my internship, driven by the belief that nonspeakers deserve access to communication that honors who they truly are. I am deeply grateful to now work alongside nonspeakers using letterboards, supporting their ability to share their thoughts, their knowledge, and their voices. My goal is simple and unwavering: to help nonspeakers access reliable, autonomous communication—so families can finally hear what has always been there
