Elizabeth Bonker is a silent woman with a loud mission. She wants government agencies to cover the costs of training people with autism in a form of communication called assisted spelling. One problem: Leading professional organizations don’t believe it works.
“All nonspeakers above the age of 5 should be given the opportunity,” typed Bonker, who is 28 and cannot talk. Her mother, Virginia Breen, held a wireless keyboard for her. They sat on a hotel patio before an April 27 meeting with a senior aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“We are misunderstood and underestimated,” Bonker typed, occasionally humming or lightly groaning as she considered where to place a slender forefinger on the keyboard.
Assisted spelling is used to help nonverbal people communicate by pointing to letters on boards or using keyboards with physical help from another person.
Supporters say assisted spelling has improved the lives of thousands of people with autism, such as Bonker, and they have powerful allies. Kennedy appointed Bonker and another autistic “speller,” as they call themselves, to a 20-member autism panel made up largely of parents with children whose autism they attribute to vaccinations.
At the reconfigured panel’s first public session on April 28, three other members said their nonspeaking a …