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Pull up a seat at our table, where badass women from all walks of life—fashion, beauty, design, music, philanthropy, art, and more—come together to share honest stories, serve truths, and dig into the realities of modern womanhood.
Johanna Almstea...: Hello, everyone. I am menu planning for my next guests and I am craving this recipe my mom actually used to make. It was like a marinated flank steak with soy and garlic and ginger. So, that's where I'm going for the main. But I think we'll start with a little bit of maybe some cocktails. I think I'll make some cocktails tonight and some crostini maybe with some yummy veggies toppings. Let's do some marinated eggplant. Let's do another crostini with chickpeas and herbs. And then I also love some artichokes. So, let's do a little artichoke crostini.
And then I'm going to mix some cocktails. I don't know exactly what these guys like to drink, so I'm just going to have everything ready. I think I might make myself ... I might make myself a margarita or like a martini. I can't decide. And then for dinner, we're going to do a marinated flank steak. I'm going to do some really beautiful roasted sweet potatoes with pinenuts and a little goat cheese sprinkled on top. I'm going to do also some roasted cauliflower with capers and a tiny bit of parmesan crust on top.
And then I'm going to do just some nice mixed greens, like a mesclun green salad with a little balsamic vinaigrette. And I think with that, I'm going to do a big Bordeaux. I'm going to do a big juicy semillon red. For music tonight, I'm feeling a little moody. So, I think I'm going to do a little bit of Kate Bush and some Death Cab for Cutie and maybe a little Zero 7. That's what I'm feeling.
I'm so excited for you to hear from my next guests and to get to know them and hear their story. I think it will change the way you think about the world and you think about your ability to convey ideas out to the world. So, I'm really, really excited for this conversation and can't wait for you guys to meet them. So, let's dig in.
Hello, everyone and welcome to Eat My Words. I am really, really looking forward to today's conversation, because I am thinking and I am hoping that it will be life-changing for somebody out there listening. I have two guests today who are doing incredibly important work in the world and I cannot wait for you guys to hear about this.
However, before we start, there is a third character in our story today who won't be here in person, but from whom we will hear later. Her name is Nina. She spent the first 16 years of her life not being able to communicate effectively with her family and the world, because she lives with non-speaking autism and apraxia. Her life and her journey are what fuel and inspire my other two guests' purpose and mission.
One is Nina's sister and the director and co-founder of Flowering Futures and co-founder of The Bridge, which is a curriculum that educates the public about spelling-based communication. With a background in environmental science and psychology from Tulane University and clinical training in herbalism, she spends most of her time as a communication and regulation partner working with autistic individuals with apraxia. Her life is deeply informed by her non-speaking sister, Nina, with whom she runs an herbal practice in service to others, advancing their shared mission of expanding awareness and advocacy around wellbeing and spelling.
She believes regulation is foundational to authentic communication and approaches spelling as a complete lifestyle. Through direct feedback from her spellers, she integrates herbal medicine, nervous system healing, and cutting-edge scientific approaches to support neurodivergent individuals in moving from surviving to thriving.
And my other guest today is Nina and Natalia's mother, who is a passionate advocate and is creating a new service business for families of non-speakers. With 25 years of experience in interior design creating spaces that support how people live, she is now deeply passionate about working with other non-speaking autistic individuals and their families on their journey to open communication, knowing that healing begins in the home and the family system. She focuses on establishing practical protocols and environments where both the non-speaker and their loved ones can thrive, helping families build sustainable practices rooted in hope and the right tools.
Both of these women approach life and their work from a deeply human and spiritual place. They are advocates, they are allies, and they are incredibly important voices for those who need help having theirs heard. Natalia Meehan and Raquel Garcia, welcome to Eat My Words.
Natalia Meehan: Thank you so much. That was amazing.
Raquel Garcia: Yes. Thank you so much. We're so happy and honored to be here with you today.
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you. I'm honored to be here and have you help share your story because I know it's such an important one and you guys have a lot going on, so I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me and to share your family's story and your journey. So, I know it's a long and winding road, but I was thinking maybe we could start. Natalia, if you could start by telling us a bit about Nina's journey and how it has become your collective journey as a family and as business partners.
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. Absolutely. So, Nina is my sister. She is the little sister out of three. I'm the oldest, and then we also have another sister named Paloma, who is in the middle. And growing up, Nina was diagnosed with autism at about age two and had a really typical hopeless outlook. It was hard for our family because we didn't have a lot of resources or guidance or tools. I think the diagnosis and everything that came afterwards was a huge challenge for our family and we didn't have any experience with this. So, it was really hard.
And for Nina, I think she had always so much inside of her and so much to say, but the rest of the world just couldn't really understand her. And because of all of the lack of information and misinformation that we had, we also didn't fully understand her as her family. And there's a lot of stereotypical things that are labeled or placed upon non-speakers, maybe that because they can't speak, they aren't intelligent or that if they move their bodies in certain weird ways, like flapping their hands or walking on their toes or screaming in public or running out of the grocery store into the middle of the street, that they must not understand safety or like social cues or things like that.
And that was really hard for us because, obviously, it was an isolating experience, not really being able to go out in public and have people be supportive or receive us as a family positively. So, I'm sure many other families with non-speakers can relate to that. And at the same time, we always knew that there was so much more to her story and to our story as a family. And we never gave up on finding different solutions. I think that it can seem really bleak, the trajectory for a non-speaker's life, given like a western diagnosis and trajectory of like, "Okay. Age two, three, whatever the age of the diagnosis, and then going through all of these different therapies and not really getting a full education, usually being outplaced in schools and then having a whole slew of different health conditions going on and then being in homes or not ending up living with the family anymore."
And so, all that to say, that wasn't what we wanted for Nina, and that wasn't what Nina wanted for herself. And now, we've been able to really have a full new lease on life with all the things that we've learned. And it's hard for me to talk about the past, because I'm so immersed in the present and how hopeful and beautiful our life is now compared to that. So, I'm excited to dig into all the things that we've done and tried and learned and where we are today that has changed that trajectory so that that's no longer the path that we have to go down just, because it's like the thing we were told was the best option. There's so many other avenues and past that are out there.
Johanna Almstea...: I mean, what a beautiful place to be. The fact that that feels like such a long distant past to you is so inspiring to me. And I hope it's inspiring to people who are listening, because it means there are solutions. There is hope for other ways of living other than the way that you were told you were going to live.
Raquel, I'd love to know just as a mother, and again, I don't want to delve too deep in the past, because we have so much to talk about of the present and the future. But as a mother, can you just talk a little bit about what that experience was like for you, of her diagnosis, and then not being able to fully understand what she was communicating?
Raquel Garcia: Sure. So, getting the diagnosis of autism was a foreign word for me. I just didn't even know what it meant and I definitely didn't know what the trajectory was. And so, I was coming into it thinking that I was a mother of three daughters. She's my youngest. I'm going to know everything on how to raise her and I knew negative zero. So, it was like a rude awakening of really just following what was given to me as a parent, because I didn't know any other way and just seeing how failing it was in all the ways.
And it was, as a mother, in terms of the journey of it was horribly depressing. It was just like there was no window of hope and it was completely isolating and having to, I might get emotional, excuse her as a human being when I would be out in public, because the public didn't know how to react to her physical apraxia of screaming, of running out of a store, just public places that you would typically go with your kid as a 2 or 3 or 4-year-old, going to the beach for a walk and having her want to run into the ocean water when it's like 30 degrees out. I had no idea. No one ever mentioned the word apraxia to me and brain-body disconnect. So, I just didn't know what was happening.
Johanna Almstea...: Can we pause there and explain what actually apraxia is to our listeners who don't know?
Natalia Meehan: Yes. Sure. So, apraxia is known as a brain-body disconnect where basically the brain has the instructions, it has all the things that it wants to do, our inner world or inner thoughts, but the body isn't getting the signal or the message. So, just imagine when we're moving as a neurotypical person with praxis, which is the access to that connection fully, we're able to think a thought and then have our body execute it pretty seamlessly.
But for those with apraxia, their movements aren't as in control. So, that can really break down why somebody could fully understand and have the awareness and the intention in their mind to stay on one side of the road or keep their body calm and still and want their hands by their side, but the body is not getting the signal and instead the body is moving all around and flailing or doing something differently and/or running across the street.
So, it's really helpful to understand apraxia, because it's the underlying condition behind so many of what the non-speakers are experiencing and they really talk about it in depth of what that feels like for them and how frustrating it can be to be judged for your external body.
Raquel Garcia: Body cues. Yeah.
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. Like the way your body reacts to things before having any idea of what's really going on inside of them. So, that's where the spelling comes in because it really gives way to coaching the body, understanding that this is more of a motor issue and a motor skill disability than it is an intellectual or cognitive disability. And by that, we're able to actually access purposeful communication and get to know what's going on inside of them that's been locked up for so long.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. So, you've touched on a couple of things that I think are really important. I think one of the things when we were talking and when I was doing research for this episode is this idea of presumed incompetence for people with this. And it's so true. I think about that all the time. I think they're being judged and being thought to be not competent, because they're not following the societal rules of behavior and yet they don't have control over what their body is doing in that way. And I think that that to me was just like such a light bulb in imagine being stuck in a body that is not doing what you wanted to do and being presumed that you don't know anything about what you're doing. That's a torture.
Raquel Garcia: I'm thinking of what a stroke victim goes through, you know them as who they are. They go through this situation that they have a stroke. And then all of a sudden, they have to relearn everything. But as a person, you already knew that they were cognitive. You already knew that who they were as a human being and now, they just have to relearn it all.
So, in other words, with the autism label, there's never any explanation of this. And so, I went through my mothering years of her not realizing that she could understand me. She just, her body was just not able to follow through. And so, once I understood what apraxia was at a later time in life, she was probably like 13-ish, maybe 12, I spoke to her differently and I didn't understand. It was like, "Are you kidding me?" And then there's the whole shame of like, "Oh, my God. What have I been doing?" And it's just this whole conundrum of things that go through me as a human being and then reorganizing my cognition around her disability and then educating and taking full responsibility and advocacy of like what is actually going on here.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. Because if you'd had this information earlier, you would have parented her differently and it's just information. It's like that's the part that's crazy is this information and it changes our behavior ...
Raquel Garcia: Yeah. There's so much misinformation and the doctors, unfortunately, and even a lot of SLPs and occupational therapists, physical, they don't practice or understand that when they are working with this community of people. And so, it's extremely limiting and there's so much frustration for the kids.
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. And I will say too, I think it's important for people to understand that every single test that measures intelligence requires a demonstration of motor. Every single test that you take assumes the person has pretty good motor skills, being able to write with a pencil or type independently into a computer or use their body reliably in a way that they have plans.
Johanna Almstea...: Of course. Right.
Natalia Meehan: And so, of course, if somebody has apraxia and isn't able to fully do that perfect demonstration of what they're going on inside of them through their output of their motor skills, then there's going to be a huge misunderstanding and a misrepresentation of who they are.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. It's not clean data.
Natalia Meehan: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: It's not what's actually going on in their brain.
Natalia Meehan: ... across all systems.
Raquel Garcia: All systems. Teachers don't know how to teach them. They go and ask them their name and what their favorite color is every time they sit down. It's like, "Are you kidding me?"
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. I think this is a huge thing to put out there that we advocate about is many people, especially in the education systems, don't understand this and treat non-speakers like they're still at the cognitive level of age 2 until they're 30 or beyond. And there's just not a lot of progress that gets made, because people don't presume competence, like you're saying. And there's so many studies out there that show, especially in educational settings, when you have high expectations, the student can rise to those expectations and meet you. And if you have low expectations, you're going to have low outcomes.
So, I think it's huge for people to fully unpack that. And like my mom was saying, deal with the emotional aspects that come up. If you have a non-speaking family member or child or cousin or whatever, and you were talking about them in front of them as if they were not there and they couldn't understand you or talking to them like they were a baby in a baby voice and they're 17 years old, like being able to just have compassion for realizing that we didn't have this information, but now we do. And how do we change how we show up and treat these individuals with respect?
Johanna Almstea...: I mean, the idea of presumed competence is like the idea of presumed innocence. It's like, "Innocent until proven guilty." Like, "Competent until proven not." But that's a total mind shift then I think most normal people are operating under.
Raquel Garcia: And most people don't want to do the work around relearning autism, non-speaking autism, whether it's a teacher, all of the professions, it doesn't matter, doctors. And that's the shame of it, because at this point, because we're at the frontlines of spelling with bringing it out into the public through so many different avenues, they're going to have to start correcting their systems, because it's overdue time.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. So, let's get into the spelling, because you brought it up a little bit and I want people to understand what it actually is and how obviously game-changing, life-changing it's been for you guys and Nina and your family. So, can you actually just break it down to what is the spelling method and how does it work and how did you find it and how did it become implemented with your family?
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. So, basically, spelling is a valid form of communication. And if you know somebody who's deaf or blind, it's similar to braille or to sign language. It's just a different form of communication for a population who has different support needs. In this case, non-speakers or unreliable speakers or minimally speaking people, which can look very different, just to break that down for a second, non-speakers are considered people who cannot really produce speech and don't have access to that.
There are also people who do have some speech and script and say words and sentences and phrases, but it's not super meaningful and it can't really go past a certain point to get their message across. And then, also, there's minimally speaking individuals who can access purposeful speech, but it's not all the time and it's inconsistent as well. So, this method works for all of those different profiles. Because I think sometimes when people hear non-speaking, they're like, "Oh, my child talks all the time." And they're reciting lines from different Disney movies or whatever, and so this must not apply to them. No. This definitely can apply to them, too.
Johanna Almstea...: Sorry. Let's just stop there for a second. I want to make sure I understand that. What you're saying is, yes, they may be verbally reciting things from a movie, but they're not actually able to get out the thoughts that are in their brain. That's almost just a ...
Natalia Meehan: It's like on mute. Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: ... defense mechanism. Yeah. Kind of a loop.
Raquel Garcia: It's a loop.
Natalia Meehan: Yes.
Johanna Almstea...: And it's not necessarily illustrative or reflective of what is happening in their brain and what they might be wanting to communicate.
Natalia Meehan: Exactly. And just to give an example, I have a bunch of unreliable speakers that I work with who I'll be sitting in a session with them and they'll be spelling or typing with me and they'll be doing beautiful work talking about a specific topic, but their voice might be speaking out like, "I need to go to the bathroom or goodbye or whatever or different things coming out."
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, wow. So, it can be happening at the same time?
Natalia Meehan: Yes.
Johanna Almstea...: They can be communicating through the typing and the spelling. But verbally, they're communicating something different.
Raquel Garcia: Completely different.
Johanna Almstea...: Wow.
Natalia Meehan: And they talk about how unreliable that speech can be, because it's sometimes often deeply ingrained loops that they're reciting over and over again and like a few core words or phrases. So, unreliable speech is really important to understand, because not all speech, just like not all body movements are always intentional. So, this is super important with apraxia, because no different than somebody moving their body in a way they can't control. A lot of times non-speakers or people with apraxia also can't control what's coming out through their speech.
So, they might be scripting or saying certain words over and over again and sometimes it might be applicable, but other times it might not. So, that's why having the access to spelling and being able to have some verification about what their intention is, is huge because an example of this is I've been sitting with one of my students, he's saying out loud, "Bathroom, bathroom, bathroom, bathroom." And he's spelling to me, "I don't need to go to the bathroom. I just can't control my body right now."
Johanna Almstea...: Wow.
Natalia Meehan: "I can't stop saying that." So, it's so game-changing to know. Like, "Okay."
Johanna Almstea...: Huge. I mean, this is huge.
Natalia Meehan: And then we're able to be so much more productive and know that we get each other and it's all good and we're just going to keep focusing on what we're doing. But yeah, I think that's really important, because so many people are like, "Oh, my kid's talking all the time."
Johanna Almstea...: Of course. That I feel like is really so interesting, because I know a few people who are living with autism and sometimes they're speaking, they're speaking words. But now to know that that might not be what they're thinking is pretty wild.
Raquel Garcia: Yeah. And then as a parent, you think, "Oh, my God. They have to go to the bathroom. Oh, my God." And then you're reactive and actually that feeds the loop for the child, the person, because they're getting a reaction from the parent or the caregiver or the teacher. And so, it becomes ingrained to say whatever it is that they're saying to get that reaction.
Johanna Almstea...: Wow.
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. And I guess, too, this is not fully getting into the spelling, making it easy to understand yet, and I'll get to that. But a lot of people who've come to spelling have been through every single other form of therapy. Let me just put that out there. Because I think, especially for our family, we have tried everything and this was the thing that works for us. And no different than the unreliable speech and sometimes the words that are coming out that aren't always intentional, this also happens on different AAC devices or communication devices that are like the gold standard for non-speaking autistic people.
Raquel Garcia: That's what Barbie came out with.
Natalia Meehan: But sometimes, it's helpful for some people. But other times, for our people with apraxia, they're prone to getting stuck in these loops or situations with their body that happen over and over and over and over and over again that they can't always stop. And some of those AAC devices become triggers for those loops where they end up pressing the same icon over and over and over and over again, and it's not purposeful or intentionally communicating what they actually mean. So, that's where the spelling comes in on all levels of this.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. So, can you guys break down how it actually works? When you sit down with someone or you begin this process of having someone learn to spell and communicate through spelling, can you break it down a little bit and tell me how that goes?
Raquel Garcia: Yeah. We start with lessons, lessons that are rigorous and age-appropriate. And there's different parts of the lesson where there's a practice word, so that you're literally able to practice the fine motor of the eye with the fine motor of the finger, looking at the board and just practicing the word enough, for example, or whatever the word is.
Johanna Almstea...: So, you guys had a board. I saw you had a board in your hand. Can you hold that up?
Raquel Garcia: So, this is a laminate letter board, A through Z. It has period, question mark, exclamation, whatever it is. And then on the back it has numbers. This is more advanced, if you could believe it or not, because of the apraxia, this is a laminate board. So, there's no feedback to the actual finger, because feedback for the person with apraxia is very important. So, a lot of times when you start, you start with three-letter boards and this has the puffy letter and it's so simple. It's low-tech on purpose, it's big on purpose, because of their fine motor disability with apraxia.
So, this gives feedback. And so, that feedback is really important when you're learning how to touch. And so, they're like touching the letter and they're spelling.
Johanna Almstea...: So, they think the letter, they see the letter, they touch the letter, they get that feedback, that sensorial feedback, and that registers with them.
Raquel Garcia: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay.
Natalia Meehan: And basically, in the beginning, so, how it works is it's not as simple as just picking up a letterboard and handing it to somebody and being like, "Here we go."
Raquel Garcia: No. You have to be trained as a CRP, a Communication Regulation Partner, in order to be able to effectively communicate with the non-speaker.
Natalia Meehan: Yes. And that's really huge, because it does take a lot of being able to coach the motor and help regulate the student.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. So, I think that's important for people to understand, like, "Don't try this at home, don't try it at home with" ...
Raquel Garcia: Don't try it at home. You might get wacked in the face.
Johanna Almstea...: Don't try it at home without some guidance and training from ... Is there an organization that they can go to?
Raquel Garcia: The Bridge is part of it.
Johanna Almstea...: The Bridge. Okay.
Raquel Garcia: And that's what Natalia is putting together right now. But there's currently, yes, there's three different companies that help you learn.
Johanna Almstea...: And we'll put them in the show notes for people, so that people have an actual reference to go to, because I do agree that we don't want people just trying this if it's ... Because we don't want people to fail. We want people to be successful in this. And so, it means that you need to go through this process of the actual training so that you can be effective.
Natalia Meehan: Exactly. And that is our story, too. We were open to spelling. We got wind of it a decade ago or more and we were trying it. There was a practitioner who would come into our town, maybe once a year, and it just wasn't cutting it. And so, we didn't think it worked. We didn't know any better. We weren't trained. We didn't know what we were doing and we thought it was just like everything else that we weren't seeing results with. So, I'm so glad you said that, because it does take training and practice and persistence, but it definitely is worth it.
And just to get into the nitty-gritty a little bit about spelling, the reason why it works is because you're coaching the motor. So, in the beginning, you're literally working on practice words, known questions where, say, I'm the communication and regulation partner and I'm sitting next to them holding up the letterboard at eye level so it's easier for them to see.
Raquel Garcia: You can just see as the non-speaker.
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. For them to see and touch.
Raquel Garcia: And then she's coaching my motor, but we're using a lesson to work with. It's not just like random.
Johanna Almstea...: Right.
Natalia Meehan: Yes. And so, how it begins is we both know what words we're going to be spelling out, so I can really prompt their body. So, if we're spelling out the word like "Tired." I'm like, "Okay. We're going to go for the T, get your body to the T. Let's move to the T. Okay. Poke it. And then we're going to go to the I. And then, now, we're going to get to the R. And now, we're going to get to the E. Okay. Amazing. We did it." You have to build up that fluency so that it becomes automatic in their system. Because the reason why this works even with people with apraxia is that all of us have neuroplasticity, which means that we can always have new neural pathways firing and wiring in our brains and our bodies to make new connections.
And with enough practice and repetition, this becomes second nature for some spellers and it starts with a lot of that prompting and that's why you have to have the training. But then, once this becomes ingrained and easy for them to reliably get to the R when they're thinking, "I need to get to the R," after that, you can progress to more open-ended communication where the communication partner has no clue what the speller's going to be typing out or spelling out, and they're just there to be a sounding board for regulation. And that's when ...
Raquel Garcia: And the magic really happens.
Natalia Meehan: Because now we're able to get open and hear what the non-speaker's thoughts are and what their words are without any influence or anything like that. So, that's basically the gist of how it works.
Raquel Garcia: It's no different than getting ready for a marathon or getting in shape in the wintertime for the summer. It's literally, you get a personal trainer and you go. You go to a Pilates class and you start to learn the movements. It's just learning the motor.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. So, again, I don't want people to run away from here and go buy, make letter boards and try to do it themselves. We're not advocating that for that. So, we're advocating for the people, go find out more about it and learn and get trained in this process. And I would love to talk now about the before and after of spelling for you guys and your family and for Nina herself. So, what has that been like?
Raquel Garcia: So, for that, I mean, I just can't even tell you. But basically, the gist is that I was taking Nina to different practitioners in the area. I live in Southern Connecticut and there was no one here. So, I would drive to Mount Kisco or I would drive to the middle of Connecticut, an hour and 15 minutes one way. And after many, many lessons over 30, at least in person when I finally found local practitioners is when I understood how to like the motor around what they were doing. Because again, a lot of this information is so gate-kept and it's not okay.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. Why do you think that is? Why are people not sharing this? Because it's controversial?
Raquel Garcia: Yeah. I don't have the answer exactly except that we don't do that here at Flowering Futures and we are all about empowering the parent, the caregiver and the student. And really explaining to them what we're actually doing so that they can practice at home. Because at the end of the day, that's where they live and they don't need to get shipped away somewhere, because the parent doesn't know what to do. And that is what the mission is. That is what Nina wanted when she started talking openly was, "Please start the Nina Foundation. I want people to know that neurotypical people can learn how to spell with neurodiverse. Everyone can do this."
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, my God. Amazing. Okay. So, Nina communicated to you guys once she was able to, that this became her passion. This is her mission is that she wants to make sure that everybody understands that neurotypical and neurodivergent people can communicate through spelling.
Natalia Meehan: Yes.
Raquel Garcia: Correct. And Nina's physical profile is highly apraxic. On a scale of 1 to 10, she was a 20. She was highly apraxic. And that is why, lightning bolt, I have to learn how to spell as a parent. I can't keep bringing her to practitioners, because I don't want her just spelling once a week. This is a lifestyle. This is like every day. This is like water. Basic needs on top of emotional output, on top of intellectual, everything. This is everything. It's communicating, like you and I right now.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. It seems so crazy that no one would think that that is urgent, an urgent daily need.
Raquel Garcia: It is extremely. It's healing, because when you see anyone fully, typical or non-typical, that's what everyone wants in the world. They want to be fully seen, held and supported. That's why we live in community. That's why we have families, all of the things. Those are the basic needs. And so, that's how we're doing that with spelling with our non-speaking children.
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. And with Nina in particular, I have had the honor and privilege to work with many non-speakers and do spelling and teach this and practice this. And she was my most difficult person I ever worked with. Yes. And why she said that was because she's not a one-off. I think a lot of families out there, there's a lot of beautiful, inspiring stories. And people see things online, but they're like, "Oh, well, this could never be my kid."
Johanna Almstea...: Yes.
Natalia Meehan: Our situation is too challenging. There's too much going on. This isn't going to work for us. This is not a one-off. If she can do it, anyone can do it.
Johanna Almstea...: I think that's an important differentiation to make and that she was, you would say, an extreme case. She was a tough nut to crack.
Raquel Garcia: Completely.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay.
Raquel Garcia: Yes. I've seen bald men and 50 spell for the first time. There's no age limit. It's wild where their parents are in their 80s.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. And I hope we'll hear from Nina a little bit about this. But these people have been living with not a clear ability to communicate with what is going on in their brains and then all of a sudden at 50, bald man is communicating to his 80-year-old parents. Like, "Wow." That must be really ...
Raquel Garcia: Life-changing.
Johanna Almstea...: ... life-changing. Yeah.
Raquel Garcia: It's a full journey and it's an expansive one and it helps you grow as a human being, too, which is why it's also very spiritual. I mean, this is where it becomes broken for families, because you see your child as they are. You don't see them as fully healed and fully expanded. You just don't know about this. And so, you say, "Oh, I can't do this. My child can't do this and I'm not willing to do this," because they're already so heartbroken and it's terrible.
And so, my job as a parent is to help people understand that it is possible. You just have to just get out of your own way and learn and then be there as a facilitator for your child. And it becomes a full parent-child relationship once you can speak, once you can spell.
Johanna Almstea...: Right. And it feels like you ... Yeah. The unlearning part. I think that you're probably having to undo a lot of maybe trust that you had in doctors who told you, "You were never going to communicate with your child." I think it's probably, is it wild to know parts of Nina now that you didn't get to know before?
Raquel Garcia: The wildest and the most healing and the most joyful part of my life.
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. It's so fulfilling. Honestly, that's why we've dedicated our lives to this now and changed our own paths is because of how life-changing it's been. I mean, there's no words to describe being able to know what's inside of somebody that you didn't know before and be able to hear the simple things like what their favorite color is or what they want for dinner that night.
Raquel Garcia: Or who they think is cute or who they like.
Natalia Meehan: Or like their favorite musician or what they want to learn about or read. All the things. And this is why it's just amazing. Because especially with Nina, she's very specific. She has very specific interests and desires and aspirations and she loves fashion and math and science and plants and all the things. So, there's no words for it. It's life-changing. It's humbling. It's extremely humbling, because you have to realize how wrong you were.
Johanna Almstea...: I was going to say, are there things even just as simple as like what her favorite food is or what her favorite color is that you like thought were one thing when she wasn't able to communicate?
Natalia Meehan: Oh, yeah.
Raquel Garcia: A million percent. That is correct.
Johanna Almstea...: And you're like, "Oh, God. I thought you liked pink this whole time."
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. There's a story I tell people, because I love Nina so much, because another aspect of her personalities, she's very feisty and very spicy. So, some of the things she spells out wouldn't be the things I would say.
Raquel Garcia: Tell them about what she said last night, too, because we just got back from a mom ... Just us going away for a minute and she hadn't seen Natalia for a week. And what did she say to you last night before bed?
Natalia Meehan: Oh, this was just a cute thing, but she was like, "I missed you so much." And she called me Zaza Bear. I was like, "What?" And I was like, "What do you mean by that name?" She's like, "That's my funny name for you." And I'm like, "Okay."
Raquel Garcia: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Wait. Can I just ask a logistical thing? When you're communicating back to her, are you spelling back or are you speaking?
Natalia Meehan: Speaking. She's totally listening to everything. And this is the other thing. So many of these individuals can hear things from very far distances, especially when I'm working with students here at Flowering Futures, when we're doing the lessons, I'm reading out loud a lot of the time and then we come back and we sit down and we do the spelling. But while I'm reading the content, they can be walking around downstairs and they fully hear what I'm saying.
Johanna Almstea...: Oh, wow, really?
Natalia Meehan: Yes. So, that's another thing I want people listening to realize is that when you're talking, these people are fully listening, they're understanding everything that you're saying. Okay. Back to the thing about ...
Johanna Almstea...: That you were saying she's spicy.
Raquel Garcia: That doesn't represent their cognition. In other words, when I was doing lessons with Nina for the first year, she wouldn't sit down. And so, it's like, "No. They have to sit down. Their feet are on the ground and that's just the way it goes." I even had to break the rules of spelling, because I had to follow her around and spell with her. And then after she knew I wasn't giving up, because she was testing me, a lot of tests ...
Johanna Almstea...: As one does to their mothers.
Raquel Garcia: A lot of tests going on and she would tell me. And I wasn't giving up, because now, I was like, "I was done. This is what I'm doing." So, I'm glad I didn't give up. I have a lot of tenacity, thank God. And so, now, she sits on the cozy sofa with me and has a blanket on and she'll be spelling. And it's just like this whole thing that I've deeply craved, it's another life, it's another relationship. And it's because I persevered and I didn't stop. I didn't say, "This doesn't work. I'm giving up." And that is what it takes. And it's just like any story. We just can't give up and on our dreams. I mean, it's part of our mission and our lifetime. So, that's really what I've done as a mom.
Natalia Meehan: Yeah. And I wanted to say this was one story because this goes into what I was explaining earlier about the unreliable speech and these loops that a lot of these kids especially can get stuck in. And then you add in the devices, whether it's an iPad or whatever, and it can just amplify the loops even more. And something that we thought Nina loved was Dora, because Nina would watch Dora on a loop over and over and over again. And if it was up to her, she would do it all day long because she couldn't control her body and stop from doing it. Now, that we understand apraxia, we understand that that was not intentional.
Johanna Almstea...: And what did she say?
Natalia Meehan: And so ...
Raquel Garcia: Verbatim.
Natalia Meehan: Once she was able to spell, I remember asking her, "What's the deal with Dora? You've been watching her your whole life. How do you feel about her?" And she said, "I," excuse my French, this is her words, "I fucking hate Dora. She tortures me. I cannot control the loops around watching this. Please help me stop."
Johanna Almstea...: Wow.
Raquel Garcia: We literally took the TV down.
Johanna Almstea...: That kicked me in the stomach, I feel like.
Raquel Garcia: Yeah. That's how it goes. Lots of stomach kicks. So, her and I, we had already taken the TV down one day, because she was so ...
Natalia Meehan: OCD.
Raquel Garcia: ... dysregulated with the television in the living room that I had to take it down with Natalia. We've never put it back up. And yeah, no iPads. Tech for them is like crack cocaine for a drug addict. It does not work.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. So, I feel like that's a good segue because I know you guys are very, very passionate about regulation. I too am very passionate about regulation, even for people who are not neurodivergent or I think everyone has a little bit of sensitivity to things. So, can you talk a little bit about the differences of when you're working with Nina or when you're working with anyone, when they're dysregulated and what you do to regulate them? Because I think that's also ... I know a few people who have autism. Not autistic. We don't say they are autistic. They say that we're living with it. They have autism. What's the best way to say it?
Natalia Meehan: I think either way.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. And the iPads and the music and the multiple electric stimulation is something that seemingly calms them. And so, I'm just wondering your, guys, thoughts on it and what you have found to be successful in your own lives, in Nina's life and in your students.
Raquel Garcia: So, with spelling, we were able to actually ask. And so, then that differentiates between the loop, the OCD loop, and the actual reality. And then we build around the reality and we take away the addiction.
Johanna Almstea...: That person could be physically playing the same thing on the iPad over and over and over again, and at the same time spelling with you like, "I hate what I'm doing right now or I don't want to watch this" or ...
Raquel Garcia: Please help me take this away from me.
Johanna Almstea...: Please take this away from me.
Raquel Garcia: I need help. Yeah.
Natalia Meehan: Yeah.
Johanna Almstea...: Okay. Wow.
Natalia Meehan: And it's a process.
Raquel Garcia: It's a process in the sense that, yes, we're taking it away, but we're also substituting information that's going to feed the brain. Because what they're looking for is input, input, input, input, input, but they're not getting it because we're not trained to know how, that even is a thing. So, they're looking for intellectual input. And so, what that means, we can pick out beautiful podcasts that are in the interest of the person to listen to. But again, the adult or the caregiver is in charge of it because otherwise, they go back to their motor loop and until they have that control, that inner reliability compass going on, they shouldn't be on their tech, because it's a motor loop.
Johanna Almstea...: And is that like a sticky transition because that's hard for people? I would imagine it is for most people.
Natalia Meehan: I would say too. The tech is clear, because so many people, even neurotypical people have phone addiction, right?
Johanna Almstea...: Yes.
Natalia Meehan: So, that's just an example that we're considering.
Raquel Garcia: Steve Jobs didn't give his kids an iPhone.
Natalia Meehan: That's just the example that we're using right now. But these motor loops can be really anything, like a certain type of food. Nina really struggled with loops around French fries and McDonald's. Seeing a McDonald's would just send her into a spiral of dysregulation if she wasn't able to get those French fries and eat them. And being able to take her direction and talk to her about it and hear from her and have her spell out and tell me, "I don't want to be eating French fries, but I can't control my body and I'm going to have to deal with this dysregulation for a little bit of time until I build enough tolerance to be able to get through it to the other side." So, we would practice driving by the McDonald's ...
Johanna Almstea...: And what would she do?
Natalia Meehan: The first 30 times, there was a dysregulation, the physical outbursts, being really upset, not being able to control her body. And then the more we did it and built safety and trust around it and we're asking her to guide us, basically, through the spelling, she was able to create a new relationship to the thing that was once very dysregulating to her, to the point where now, she doesn't have that same body compulsion towards French fries or McDonald's anymore.
Raquel Garcia: But because she knew that we understood, she actually redirected herself. She would take her blanket in the car and she would know where the McDonald's was on the highway and she would know that she's anticipating, because these kids know where things are, directionally. She would just cover her head.
Natalia Meehan: So, she's built-up skills to basically deal with different things that were extremely dysregulating to her, to the point where it would ruin her entire day. Obviously, every single person is different and has different triggers and different things that can be very dysregulating to them. That being said, the reason why regulation is key is because if you think about it, just as a neurotypical person, when we feel safe in our body and we have better breathing, we're slower, we can calm down a little bit, we have more reliable access to our intention of what we really want to say and what we really wanted to do, especially with those with apraxia, with their body, being able to get into a regulated state helps with motor access.
And so, you can feel that as a neurotypical person. When you're really dysregulated and worked up and stressed, it's hard to access what you really want to say. It's hard to really control your body, for all of us. So, that's why focusing on the regulation component is huge. Because if we're able to address that, we're going to have more meaningful and better outcomes with our communication.
Raquel Garcia: And in life, just ...
Natalia Meehan: In life, yes.
Raquel Garcia: It pours into every part of life. It's just like there's flow.
Johanna Almstea...: Of course. Right. Of course. So, I'm just going to hop in here and say this episode has been amazing and it's been a very, very long conversation. So, we are actually going to split it into two. And before we let you go, we are going to give you some question and answers that we asked Nina. So, we got to hear from Nina directly. We emailed her a set of questions and her mom and her sister and her communication partners helped get us those answers back. So, I wanted to make sure we heard from Nina before the end of this episode, so I wanted to just give you those now.
Okay. So, we asked Nina a few questions. The first question I asked her was, "What are the top three things that you want our listeners to know about non-speaking individuals and spelling?" Well, first of all, she said, "Yes, good question," which thanks, Nina. She said, "Assume determination in the method of spelling. Don't give up on the student. Go east to west to create a strong student. Even if you go slow, do not stop so they see that you care. Don't focus on yesterday. Meaning, to not stay in the past." Oh, I think that's a pretty good lesson for all of us, don't you think? Don't focus on yesterday. Do not stay in the past. I think that's quite beautiful.
I also asked her, "How has your life changed since you became a speller?" Her answer is this. "My life opened up so much that I'm free now. I am a different person. I can manage my life now. Spelling is my lifeline. Spelling is so important to learn. My mom didn't give up on me, not for a minute." So beautiful. Man, if that's one thing this conversation has taught me is a mother's love and a sister's love and not giving up on your loved ones no matter what.
I also asked her what is an achievement that you are most proud of. She said, "My greatest achievement is my own steadiness in my own body." Beautiful. I asked her what she's dreaming about these days. "Nina, what are you dreaming about these days?" Her answer was this, "I'm dreaming of travel. Italy and Hawaii are on my mind." Me too, girl. Me too. So, I'm so happy to be able to share her answers with you. I think that it's a beautiful example and a real-life illustration of how this spelling technique has changed and a few years ago she wouldn't have been able to answer those questions.
So, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for tuning in. We are going to bring you part two of this conversation next week, and I hope that you're enjoying it. I hope you're learning something. And as always, we thank you so much for tuning in. We thank you for listening. We thank you for being present with these stories. And if you know somebody who you think could benefit from this, please share this episode with them. You can copy and paste it in your media players. You can just hit the Share link and it'll usually give you an opportunity to copy the link. You can post it in your social media, you can paste it in DMs, you can paste it in a text, you can paste it in an email, but please do share it with anyone that you think might find this helpful.
And if you're not doing so already, please follow us on social media or at Eat My Words, the podcast on Instagram and TikTok. So, we will check back in with you next week for the rest of Natalia and Raquel and Nina's story. Thanks for tuning in.
This podcast has been created and directed by me, Joanna Almstead. Our producer is Sophy Drouin, our audio editor is Isabel Robertson, and our brand manager is Mila Boujnah.