Nurturing Care with Minimally Verbal Children February 10 marked on of our #NTS Nurturing Care inaugural events with pastor Stephanie Answer and Stephanie Barton, a speech pathology therapist that is part of the spelling to communicate movement.

The gathering came courtesy one of our mini-grants to New Community Church, with a primary focus on developing opportunities for minimally verbal children to express their prayers through facilitated communication.

The orientation today includes the basics between language and motor skills.

Barton notes that even gross motor skills “may” prove challenging for children with autism so our coaching includes helping children move from cognition “knowing what needs to be done” to the difficult task of actually completing the motor task. In a nutshell, think ballet, knowing “what” is not knowing “how” with the body.

Over time the goal is to move from purposeful movement to over learned movement/motor skill. The meeting serves as a beginning on helping minimally verbal children express prayers through our KC initiative.

Learn more at https://nurturingcare.org