Growing up in rural South
and North Dakota, Sarah had little exposure
to the technology that would eventually
help her to overcome the challenge of
articulating her thoughts. While denied
the gift of intelligible speech by congenital
brainstem dysfunction, Sarah has always
been creative in expressing herself,
whether using a picture communication
book or uttering single words in
combination with gestures. In high
school, she adopted new tools – a laptop
computer with speech and an electronic
personal organizer where she typed
messages for conversation partners to read.
A new world of possibilities opened for Sarah
at a February 2004 videoconference with a
representative from the North Dakota Interagency
Program for Assistive Technology and her vocational rehabilitation counselor. She went on to try her first augmentative and alternative communication device,
but it proved too heavy to tote around. When
she later tried the Palmtop, she knew she’d
found the perfect fit. “It changed my life,”
she said. “I can take it wherever
I go. People can hear my words
without looking over my shoulder.”
Ever resourceful in getting her message across,
Sarah uses the Palmtop fully and appreciates
its timesaving features. Word prediction,
for instance, supports her efforts to expand her
vocabulary and conversation opportunities.
Lisa Clayton, her speech-language pathologist,
recalls many pride-filled moments in the
two years they’ve worked together –
like hearing a phone message Sarah left
with the aid of the device.
“Sarah is a real success story because
of her strong motivation to communicate and
her willingness to patiently work through
the challenges.”
Sarah enjoys spending time with her family. Her father, Val, is pastor of Bowman United Methodist Church and mother, Teresa, a homemaker. She has a younger brother, Jonathan, and adult foster brother, Mark, who has Down Syndrome. Her older brother Aaron is a seminarian in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
For fun, Sarah likes to surf the Internet, watch TV, listen to the radio and read. While she enjoys the freedom of living in her own apartment, she looks forward to marrying and starting a family someday.
Sarah is the secretary at her father’s church. She prepares the bulletin, tracks weekly church attendance and offerings, writes birthday and anniversary letters to members, and keeps the prayer list up to date. As a volunteer at The Cedar Chest second-hand store, she arranges clothing displays, packs bags of clothes sent to missions and runs errands.
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