Monika Ostroff

HB 1215 is about whether we are willing to challenge our assumptions and truly listen when someone finds a reliable way to communicate. My daughter uses Spelling to Communicate. Before she had access to spelling, many people — including her school — assumed she could not do math. Through spelling, she began solving math problems in her head. She has identified artists of paintings we had never discussed and revealed interests and humor we did not know were there. The barrier was never her intelligence. It was motor control. A close friend’s son, when he first gained access to a letterboard, spelled words none of us will ever forget: “Everything that comes out of my mouth is shit. Don’t listen to anything that I say. Listen to what I spell.” That is not a child without language. That is a child whose body could not reliably express what his mind already knew. Spelling gave him a pathway to express his authentic thoughts — thoughts that were always there. Humans thrive in connection, and language is how we connect and come to understand one another. Communication is a human right. We cannot deprive someone of that right simply because they access it differently. HB 1215 affirms that in New Hampshire, we are willing to listen.