wfn.org | Campers get chance to delight in special freedoms of speech

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

July 31, 1998      Contact: Thomas S. McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville,
Tenn.       {456}

NOTE:  Editors, please use the copyright line and credit line with the
story. A photograph is available.

* Copyright Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 1998. Used with permission.

By Erica Werner*

LITTLE ROCK (UMNS) - Until two years ago, Shanell Ellington, 20, could
not communicate.  He was considered mentally disabled because a stroke
resulting from sickle cell anemia had robbed him of speech, and teachers
isolated him in special classrooms.

Then, at a summer camp when he was 18, Ellington saw a fellow camper
using an "augmentative communication device."

The device is a keyboard-shaped computer with dozens of little pictures,
in addition to letters and numbers. Someone with a speech disorder can
punch the buttons in different sequences, producing words or phrases
that the device says out loud.

Ellington borrowed the computer.

"He came back two hours later and he had it saying, 'I want to know
Andrea's phone number,' " recalled Phillip Pengelly, who worked with
Ellington at the camp.

Andrea was a counselor whom Ellington wanted to befriend.

"Right then I knew he should have one of these," said Pengelly, an
organizer of Camp Full of Words, a recent event at United
Methodist-related Camp Aldersgate in Little Rock. "Shanell's totally a
unique story because all through high school he was kept in an isolated
environment.  His brain was always there but he could never express it.
Now he can."

Ellington was one of 20 campers, age 5 ½ to 21, who came to Camp
Aldersgate, each with an augmentative communication device and at least
one facilitator, like a parent or speech therapist, in tow.

This was the first year for Augmentative Communication Device Camp,
which aims to help people who own such devices develop their skills
further and gives them the chance to interact with others.

Campers also will participate in traditional summer camp activities like
canoeing, sleeping in cabins and a '50s theme dance.

"We try to keep it as normal a camp as possible," Pengelly said.

Easter Seals, a nonprofit agency dedicated to helping children and
adults with disabilities, and Camp Aldersgate are paying the
$1,081-per-camper cost.

Augmentative Communication Device Camp is part of Camp Aldersgate's
series of "Med Camps," each a weeklong program devoted to entertaining
and teaching individuals with different disabilities or health problems,
such as cancer or arthritis.

The speech defects that caused the campers to need voice devices
resulted mainly from autism and cerebral palsy, Pengelly said.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, the registration room was filled with
parents and campers, many in wheelchairs and most holding their
augmentative communication device.

Seven-year-old Taylor Holmes of Little Rock punched a few keys on his,
making it tell a joke:

"What does a cow do on Saturday night?"

"It goes to a moo-vie."

He received a thumbs-up from Keith Mitchell, 12, of Bryant, Ark.,
sitting nearby with his own communication device.

"There's real neat bonding for them," said Kathleen Keefe, director of
the med-camps program, as she watched the campers interact. "It's a real
neat opportunity for them to realize they're not alone."

Augmentative communication devices cost about $6,000 each and have been
available for the past 10 to 15 years, Pengelly said.

But only about 200 people in Arkansas own them, estimated Jill McIlory,
assistant technology specialist for the Little Rock School District and
a volunteer at the camp.

That low number is because of people not knowing about the devices,
McIlory said. Once someone knows they are available, there is usually a
way to get one, through Medicaid or another program, she said.

Linguists created the devices with a capacity to produce 6,500 words and
phrases. They display dozens of different icons like a sun, a snail, a
finger with a string tied around it, an apple and a pair of
tragedy/comedy masks. Different combinations produce different words or
phrases, some preprogrammed and others entered by the individual owner.

Ellington programmed his device to say Pengelly's name when he hits two
keys: one showing a skull and crossbones and another showing a trash
can. As a joke, he picked the two most unpleasant pictures on the
keyboard.

When Ellington had a seizure recently, he called 911, left the phone off
the hook until the ambulance came, and then punched in that code. The
device spoke up, telling paramedics to call Pengelly and giving them
Pengelly's pager number.

But Ellington rarely puts the device to such serious use.

When a visitor learned the price tag of a week at Camp Full of Words,
Ellington hit a few keys and his computer piped up, "That's ridiculous."

"You see," Pengelly said. "It gives freedom of expression."

#  #  #

*Werner is a writer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper in
Little Rock.

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