‘I knew he was in there’: Kamloops family celebrates as non-verbal son finally finds his voice

KAMLOOPS — At just three-and-a-half years old, Luke Verhoeff was diagnosed with mild-to-moderate autism with a Global Developmental Delay. His family tried multiple types of therapy to help treat Luke’s autism.

However, none of them yielded significant results until his Mom read a book about Spelling as Communication, which opened up Luke to the world — and the world to Luke.

When Sandra Verhoeff first heard of Spelling as Communication, she immediately wanted to try the Spelling 2 Communicate method with her son Luke.

“The first I heard about it was a book called Underestimated: [an autism miracle],” Verhoeff recalls. “The book just kind of fell in my lap at the right time… two and a half years ago. I read it front to back and I was like, ‘This is Luke. This is my son.’”

There aren’t many practitioners of Spelling 2 Communicate in BC. The family connected with Madison Imber, who runs Mentoring Minds in Calgary. During his first session with Madison, Luke found his voice quickly.

“She did the RPM method — Rapid Prompting Method — and was able to connect with him and have him spell some words of his own opinion, his own mind,” Verhoeff says. “Nobody was feeding him, it was actually his own opinion and mind. We got this tiny taste of what it could be like, so (we were) pretty stoked after that.”

The family quickly learned that despite not being able to verbally communicate, Luke had a lot to say.

“It’s tough, because you know he’s been in there 19 years,” Dad Dave Verhoeff says. “And he couldn’t get it out. I think maybe we did underestimate Luke, but then to hear his responses, you get a sense of who he really is. It was amazing.”

Luke believes he was misdiagnosed. The Verhoeffs found out, through Luke’s own experience, that he has Apraxia and Dyspraxia, which is the loss of the ability to coordinate and perform skilled, purposeful movements and gestures with normal accuracy. This affects his ability to consistently form sounds and syllables.

“In Luke’s case, Apraxia or Dyspraxia was never mentioned,” Sandra says. “Any psychological educational testing is all based on handwriting or talking, and these guys can’t do that. They can’t answer them, so they test really poorly and it eventually shows such a poor IQ, that they just get underestimated.”

While the family works hard together to improve Luke’s Spelling 2 Communicate skills at home, he continues to work with Madison at Mentoring Minds. She helps Luke express his thoughts, as he plans to use his newfound voice to advocate for others who have been diagnosed as non-verbal.

“It’s been exciting. When he talks, it’s pretty cool, the words he says,” Sandra tells CFJC Today. “He’s a hippie, he’s light-hearted.”

“He’s max chill,” Dave chimes in.

“Those are his words,” Sandra says with a laugh.

You can follow Luke’s journey via his website — complete with blog posts he’s written — at www.thisisLuke.ca.