The Highwire with Del Bigtree - BREWING BRILLIANCE: SPELLERS CONTINUE THEIR INSPIRING JOURNEY

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Dawnmarie Gaivin, co-founder of the miraculous approach to communicating with nonspeakers, the Spellers Method, announces an exciting new partnership with Golden Road Brewing to launch a new beer, created by Spellers, with all proceeds going to Spellers Freedom Foundation. She also discusses the documentary crew that has been following the Spellers as they discover their lives with communication, who are coming out with a new series called “Underestimated”, which will air on the brand new Underestimated TV platform.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

Of course, Vax, which puts me in the center of this conversation was really all about the MMR vaccine and autism. And I'm not going to get deep into that issue. There's lots of different environmental factors that are probably involved with autism, all of which we research and talk about all the time. But in this space of autism and that I've been focused on for nearly a decade now, probably the most unbelievable miracle. advancement I've seen is through spelling to communicate a way to you know work with people that are dealing with autism in helping them sort of break out of that cage that they're stuck in and find a way to communicate it I've watched it with my own eyes I have watched you know 18 19 20 year old adults that were considered

nonverbal I knew them for years and now I'm watching them go to college I'm watching them be valedictorians. I am watching them suddenly with just a couple of years, you know, dealing with calculus. It's so unimaginable and so brilliant that it's impossible to describe. We had the documentary featured here on our show, Spellers. And for those of you that might have missed it, here's just look at a part of what that was all about. live broadcast of the documentary Spellers. There are 31 million non-speakers in the world. That means 31 million people have not found their voice.

My best friend has a nonverbal child and all these kids are just brilliant beyond words and I'm just very inspired, just moved me to tears. My son is six, he's non-speaking and I heard if they were doing the premiere here today and I decided to come out because I just feel like I'm just feel like I'm not speaking. I needed to be here to learn. We have a six-year-old son, Tuck, who is nonverbal and severely autistic. Seeing them actually do it, they were intellectually answering every question. Like, me and my wife are just like bawling.

We can't wait to go home and continue training with him. It's amazing. Your son is strong. You should expect him to soak up information and spell each day for short sessions. He will surprise you. One thing that struck me was how different each individual was. The humor that came out. I just want to know how you learn to read.

Elizabeth typed the CNN ticker. Wow. Being in the live audience, it's obvious that these spellers are doing the work. I know these kids can spell. So if they can spell, they can do this, right? The rest is just motor skills. At what age should I, as a practitioner, be sort of pushing this?

I started at five and could have done it earlier. Wow. Presume competence always and know that our bodies don't always listen to us. I just love that these kids finally have a voice and we're able to really know what they're thinking and how they're feeling. It just gives me even more hope that my son's like way smarter than I give him the capability of and that one day he will be able to tell us how he feels. Believe in all non-speakers and presume competence always. Everybody needs to see this movie, every ABA therapist, every speech,

therapist, every educator needs to see this movie. Elizabeth typed, help is on the way. Communication for all will be a reality. The blind have braille and the deaf sign language. All non-speakers will spell and type. Well, I'm so happy to be joined now by the co-founder of the Spellers Method, Don Marie Gavin. Thank you for joining us today as we celebrate great women in the

medical health space. This truly is like watching a miracle. Thank you, Doug. Yeah. So, you know, we, the documentary was a huge hit, but the Spellers have been touring. There's all sorts of great stuff they're up to. So I just wanted an update on sort of what's the latest and greatest from this incredible, you know, group of young people that are, you know, you know, really forging a path forward for people. on the spectrum around the world. So what's the latest? What are we up to? Well, the latest and greatest is that several of the cast members of Spellers,

the documentary, as well as a few other non-speakers, are on the board. They are the board for Spellers Freedom Foundation, which is a 501c3. So they run the organization, and they actually partnered. Several of these folks have partnered with Golden Road Brewing, and we created a beer, which is launching on Tuesday. Day, World Autism Day, which is a fundraiser. And the money raised for all the net proceeds, Golden Road is donating back to Speller's Freedom Foundation, and all the proceeds are going to families who need scholarships in order to

get the training so they can become communication partners for their child or their loved one. So that's the latest and greatest big project. Well, hold on. Let's go ahead and see the commercial as it air. Take a look at this, everybody. So we make a point to not advertise products on this show, but this is one that I have no problem getting behind. First of all, I love beer. And second of all, like, why wouldn't we?

So where are we going to be able to find this beer? Where is it being produced and offered? Well, for this year in the month of April, it's only available in Southern California. But we want people going into their local markets and demanding it, right? Because then it will hopefully get onto the fall resets, be back on the shelves in the fall and start spreading nations. World and Road has agreed to collaborate with Speller's Freedom Foundation again next year, and hopefully we'll be making a beer every year with them. Because this is been part of another project, which is we've created a spin-off from the

movie, Spellers, the documentary. Families were dying for more. They just wanted, after the movie came out, they said, you know, we want to hear more stories. There is more to this revolution. And Pat Nataro, who is the producer and director of the film, he and Evan Rogers, who is the editor came to us and said, we've got this great idea to create a series. And so we filmed five episodes, five more episodes,

like the documentary, and it's called Underestimated, the heroic rise of non-speaking Spellers. This episode that we filmed with the beer collaboration happens to be episode three, and it was about inclusion. And from day one, we literally, we had spellers across the country joining Zoom calls where we actually, with their help, they came up with the name of the beer, They came up with the flavor for the beer liquid.

And then four spellers, as featured in the commercial, came in person to Anaheim and worked these four right here, Jamie and William and Page and Victor. And they worked repeatedly with the marketing team, the brewmasters, everyone, until this beer truly came to life. It's 100% their creation. The Golden Road folks, I don't think had ever worked with anyone with non-speaking autism before. But it's just a testimony to what communication does for people.

Right? Well, yeah. And you've got that series. I think we've got a trailer for it. The series coming up. Take a look at this, everybody. It's a hazy IPA. You can't see through it.

How do you move beyond the haze to actually see it very clearly? This project brought the soul of the business alive. You captured the revolutionary feel. We'd rather give back and have the focus on the people who are receiving but on the people who are giving. Communication should be the expectation. Damn, we are good. Amazing.

Boy, that looks inspiring. So I understand that that's going to be launched. You have a launch party coming up. Tell me a little bit about that. Yes, so Tuesday World Autism Day. You can actually watch it from home if you go to SpellersfreedomFoundation.org. Right at the top of the page, you'll see how to join the virtual watch party. If you're in Southern California, by all means, come to Golden,

Road Brewery. But we're having the launch party. We're going to show episode three one time on that virtual launch on Tuesday night. And then the whole series is available for pre-sale right now, starting today on underestimated.tv. The episodes will start to release May 26th, and you'll see one episode per week for five weeks. But like I said, Tuesday nights, the launch party, the beer launch and the series launch. And you can join from home. Before I let you go, I mean, I actually, this whole Speller's phenomenon has blown my mind, and I will on occasion walk up to someone I see in a grocery store or something. If I see the child's got headphones on and just ask them if they're aware of spelling to communicate,

have they seen Speller as a documentary, and I will promote that to just say, you should take a look at it. And one of the things that, you know, I've heard is just people wonder, but will it work for my child? Some people saying my child's incredibly, you know, has real violence issues or is just, just has such a difficulty with the movements in their body. I just don't know how this would work. Or they're already, you know, speaking a little bit.

They use some words, and I just feel like they're already communicating on some level. This isn't necessary. What are your thoughts in sort of those scenarios when someone comes to you about that that are looking, is Speller's right for my child? Yeah, it's a natural question. Everyone thinks that their child's going to be the one it doesn't work for, right? And we are afraid to get our hopes up. Certainly the first thing we tell people is if your child is non-speaking, if they're

unreliably speaking, they might script or repeat movie phrases or they're minimally speaking so they can't have conversation with you, then they absolutely, would benefit from bypassing using their articulators, using their fine motor muscles of speech of their mouth and their tongue and their jaw and using the shoulder to point to letters. So 100% this is what this method is for. It will help even those who have some speech communicate more robustly. It's most confusing when kids have no speech at all because people think, well, he can say this, this and this, he can request. And we're like, no, there's so much more, that's like the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more language underneath there that they're

not able to access through the fine motor skills of speech. So that's who it's really useful for. Back in 2021, Dana Johnson and I, who she's a PhD OT from Tampa, Florida, my business partner, we embarked on Speller's Method, which built on previous spelled method communication methodologies where we bring in occupational therapy and developmental optometry and really addressing what you brought up, which is some of the more complex motor situations or cases or folks down syndrome, very different developmental optometry needs there with vision. And how do we make sure that spelling to communicate and spelled communication is available

to all? So it's much, it's more inclusive and it's more accessible no matter the motor profile. Where does someone go that wants to look into this for a loved one or friend or, you know, in their family? Sure. I would say for sure the main website, which is simply spellers.com. But we all We also have a Facebook group called Spellers Community and it's really run by parents because at the end of the day autism parents trust autism parents, right? So they want to hear from other parents who've done this. And those of us who are practitioners moderate to make sure the information being relayed is accurate,

but mostly it's just parents giving advice to other parents. So Spellers community, the Facebook group, but Spellers.com for more information about our services, our online classes and even our in-person immersion programs. All right, Don Marie, thank you for joining us for that amazing update. You're doing such incredible work. And this is, you know, there's so many people that are, I think, ready to have their lives change across the world, ready to go to universities, ready. They just don't know. Well, they know it, but their parents don't know it, right?

Their caretakers don't know it, which is why we've got to get the word out. This is just such a profound, I'm going to just keep saying it. It's a miracle. And I know that all it really is is a discovery, finally understood what's happening here. But you're truly a hero. Thank you for all the work that you're doing and all the lives you're changing every day.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. All right, take care.