<![CDATA[MOUTH TO HAND LEARNING CENTER

<![CDATA[MOUTH TO HAND LEARNING CENTER - Not Any More]]>Wed, 13 May 2026 21:40:53 -0400Weebly<![CDATA[That Moment]]>Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:58:00 GMThttps://www.mouthtohandlearning.com/not-any-more/that-momentWe love that moment when someone who is a non-believer sees us type and is astounded. It is both hilarious and wonderful. I am a big fan of bringing visitors into Mouth to Hand because invariably they are converted after seeing us. That also gives us a chance to show off - which is fun.

I notice that Judy likes these people to come into groups like poetry and music appreciation. Really we thrive on that moment when we can type “that is the second movement of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony” or “The way Keats uses meter as a form of enactment is fascinating.” I love showing off because all my life before Judy I was treated as a vegetable.

So yeah, I love having visitors come here. It benefits both them and us.

]]><![CDATA[We Want a Cure]]>Tue, 29 Apr 2025 19:04:27 GMThttps://www.mouthtohandlearning.com/not-any-more/we-want-a-cureToday my brother, Tyler, wrote a post about the hope for a cure someday. It seethes with indignation. Definitely there is a disconnect between those with nonspeaking autism, and those with the other kind. We want to be cured because our lives are hellish. We also suffer from OCD, anxiety and a lack of control over our bodies. Most of us spend our school years in classes for the profoundly cognitively disabled. And then we will spend the rest of our lives in daycare which, to us, is vegetation.

We cannot talk through any medium except typing for communication and that is insanely difficult and slow for us. And only the tiniest percentage of us have the opportunity to learn the skill. To become hostile when someone says they want a cure is barbaric at best. It is cruel and to be blunt, disgusting.

]]><![CDATA[Watch Us]]>Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:40:23 GMThttps://www.mouthtohandlearning.com/not-any-more/watch-usI certainly believe that we can convince people that we are not cognitively disabled if we can get them to see us in person. Too many people judge spelling without ever seeing it with their own eyes. The ribbon-cutting ceremony really showed me what happens when people see us live. No one left that day thinking that spelling was anything but real and miraculous. I could hear conversations all over that had people saying that what they had witnessed was astounding. What we need is to get ASHA to see loads of spellers from all over to convince them.

One day this will be the accepted form of communication for nonspeakers everywhere. And we will not face the skepticism we do now. Until then, we can make someone a believer by letting them see us spell.

]]><![CDATA[My Buzz]]>Tue, 21 Jan 2025 18:13:19 GMThttps://www.mouthtohandlearning.com/not-any-more/my-buzzThere are only two and a half months left until the gala, and I already find myself getting excited. Maybe it’s my addiction to that positive energy. We totally want to feel that high, when so many people are there to celebrate us.

This past weekend we certainly had a taste of that energy. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was electric. There were about a million people there. There were people overflowing the big room into the halls and lobby. Certainly there were minds changed.

I get what I reckon crack addicts get, from that positive energy. I am riding that high until the next big event. I feel totally buzzed on happiness.

]]><![CDATA[Coming Home]]>Tue, 07 Jan 2025 18:46:12 GMThttps://www.mouthtohandlearning.com/not-any-more/coming-homeThe reality that exists outside the walls of M2H utterly stinks. Laughter and fun mostly happen here. It may seem like that is an exaggeration, but it’s not. We have taken several trips and we do fun things all the time. I have to give my Mom credit and show my appreciation for all she does. But there is no place like home…and M2H. That is what I was thinking the whole time we were in Florida over the Christmas break: “I am so waiting to go home…and I miss everyone at M2H.”

Traveling is fun…but nothing beats being here.

]]><![CDATA[The Beauty of Emotions]]>Tue, 12 Nov 2024 18:20:15 GMThttps://www.mouthtohandlearning.com/not-any-more/the-beauty-of-emotionsHaving the desire to experience deep emotions is what life is all about, I believe. Having existed in a dream world for all of my life before spelling, I am something of an expert on this. The world I created in my mind was a bubble of protection, I think, to allow me to escape the agony of my voiceless existence. But the downside of that is that I felt next-to-nothing.

When I woke up to this real world, the thing I noticed most was the variety of emotions I’d missed out on. Emotions like anger and amusement were new to me. Real calmness was also new, as was excitement. And perhaps most significant of all, happiness became my most typical emotion.

I am living now, whereas before, I was merely existing. I am the prime example of that. That is why when I experience negative emotions, I also feel gratitude. Seeing the world through these now-open eyes is the most beautiful thing on earth.

]]><![CDATA[Time]]>Tue, 08 Oct 2024 16:01:05 GMThttps://www.mouthtohandlearning.com/not-any-more/timeWe take time for granted, but when you think about it, it’s the most valuable thing there is. Rapidly the days, the months, the years slip by. People that work in this garden that we call the Earth really tend to wish their lives away, wanting it to be one day, not the other: TGIF and all that. Forwarding the calendar, as if each day were not precious, they rush through their lives.

Very few people take the time to consider time. We as a species only live for an average of maybe seventy-five years. That means I am already more than a third through my life. So why would I want to rush my days when there are so few to begin with?

I am not planning to rush through my life. Time that matters to me is the time in which I’m using it to do things that are important: the most important of all is being with those I love.

]]><![CDATA[Three Years]]>Tue, 01 Oct 2024 21:52:13 GMThttps://www.mouthtohandlearning.com/not-any-more/three-yearsIt’s my belief that love and friendship are the most important things on earth. Getting the ability to spell opened up a new world for me and my brother. Three years ago he and I were alone in our bodies. It was so lonely. Today we have so many amazing friends. What a gift spelling has been for us! Being able to talk is the greatest feeling in the world.

]]><![CDATA[Really Living]]>Tue, 24 Sep 2024 15:48:24 GMThttps://www.mouthtohandlearning.com/not-any-more/really-livingThe old Trevor, who existed before spelling, was vacuous. He didn’t know the time of day: I mean that literally. It’s not that he didn’t know how to tell time: it’s that he lived in a dream world inside his own head. I so feel happier now that I am engaged with the real world.

In the real world there are things that happen, and cannot be supplied by imagination. I had no friends in my dream. I created nothing; I learned nothing. It was a dark and unbearably lonely place, but it had one thing going for it: it definitely was better than living in this body before spelling.

Having lived in lalaland for most of my life means that I have a ton to make up for. I am determined to do so. I plan to live the cliche of living life to the fullest.

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