About Us

Authors: 
Gill Steckle is a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP)and Kristel Pallant is an Occupational Therapist (OT). They both work at Thames Valley Children's Centre (TVCC) in the Augmentative Communication Service (ACS) in London, ON Canada. Kelli Vessoyan is an OT in ACS who has also made significant contributions to this project.

Pilot Project: May-June 2007
We started this project as a way to share ideas about how kids who use AC could participate in every day activities with classroom teachers.  We started with 4 classrooms in a development centre in an elementary school in London, Ontario.  We provided 2 theme based newsletters provided to teachers and educational assistants.  We used a questionnaire to evaluate the usefulness, effect on applying related knowledge, requirements for additional supports and comments.  Our results indicated indicated that educators would like to continue to receive newsletters.

I can...Newsletter: 2007-2011
We provided a paper or electronic format of the newsletter to teachers, therapists and families who were receiving services from Thames Valley Children's Centre.  We also provided a list of back issues on the TVCC website. 

I can...Blog: August 2011-present
We changed our format to create a way to allow readers to search back issues by using keywords.  We were pleasantly surprised that people outside of Thames Valley Children's Centre began reading our newsletter. We are thrilled that many different countries are reading our newsletter each month.  Thank you for your support!