Meet a Few of Our Participants Nicole is a woman in her mid 30's who wanted to do things with her children. Like being able to talk to them about school, homework, and their friends. Little things were very big to her because she came to us with only a few words. We developed communication boards: one with pictures on it so she could communicate with her youngest son, and another to use with her daughter that had short phrases on it she could read out loud. We also developed and practiced saying a list of common phrases to help her communicate with her children. Because she'd lost her speech, we practiced reading children's books with her so she could read them with and to her children once more. Matt suffered a stroke prior to his daughter's wedding. His aphasia left him unable to speak, and he wanted so much to speak during her wedding reception. We worked with him to help him write the speech. We worked on enabling him to say each word. We practiced. With hard work and persistence, Matt was finally ready to make the speech physically. But he still lacked the confidence to get up in front of the audience and present it. So, we videotaped him making his speech to his InteRACT friends. In this way, Matt spoke at his daughter's wedding. At 36 Debbie, a health care worker, never dreamed a stroke could happen to her. But it did - leaving her with limited speech and an inability to read. She felt dependent on others. We worked to establish a level of freedom for Debbie by improving her speech and teaching her to read again. We used materials that were important to Debbie - like her own local newspaper, or books about gardening - one of her hobbies. Debbie is an avid shopper - so we focused on everything from flyers to budgets and shopping lists. Prior to her stroke, Debbie enjoyed cooking - AND eating out so we read recipes and made the dishes, and practiced reading menus. This enabled Debbie to return to daily activities such as grocery shopping, ordering in a restaurant, using the telephone, and making reservations. Small things to most people, these gains meant everything to Debbie who had lost them.