Commūnicāre, LLC

04/22/2026

03/13/2026

Come check out and purchase some of this beautiful artwork from students at Tate Learning Center next week at the JCC!

03/01/2026

Today we went to one of our previous student's wakes. This is a student whose laugh you hear immediately, and see their smile as soon as you picture them in your mind. It is a harsh reality in our field, unfortunately, that we are going to our student’s wakes, celebration of life, or memorials. Walking away from this gathering celebrating this amazing individual’s life, although be it way too short, we feel the joy and love this individual, their family, and their team (school team) shared. It is breathtaking to be a part of this team. This individual taught us more than we could possibly learn in a class, with an extra degree, or in a training. This individual taught us joy, connection, valuing nonverbal, lite-tech, mid-tech, and high-tech communication. Every photo of this individual with those who loved her and engaged with her emanated love, joy, and sass. We can get side tracked with goals, objectives, standardized testing and data, but our overarching goal needs to be connections. That is the whole purpose of communication. The individual’s parents are living their nightmare. But I hope that seeing all of the individuals in that line waiting to greet them and celebrate their amazing daughter’s life although short, brings a calming feeling. In this case, Kelli brought so much joy and love to those who were around here and learned from her. This family recommended instead of flowers for their daughter people making donations to the South Hadley Best Buddies Day Games in Kelli’s name. This family was a loud, fierce, and loving voice supporting the schools Best Buddies program and Special Olympics program. So much so that it empowered neighboring schools to follow suit. If able, I recommend everyone make a donation to their local Best Buddies or Special Olympics to support students who enjoy, deserve, and bring joy to others to engage in a shared and celebrated event and community. And to the parents of the students we support we see you, we respect you, and we value you.

02/13/2026

Who wants to have some fun! The P.L.A.C.E is what we have all been talking about is needed in Western Mass. If you can’t make this event with your teen or adult follow them for up coming events!

BREAKING NEWS! : Kermit just called. He's bringing the whole gang to The P.L.A.C.E on Feb 20th!
Double feature + PJs + popcorn + cozy vibes = the most SENSATIONAL, INSPIRATIONAL, CELEBRATIONAL movie night!
Doors at 6, showtime at 6:30. $10 gets you two classic films and all the Muppet magic your heart can handle.
Who's ready to lounge around with Fozzie Bear?
STAY CONNECTED HERE-RSVP
https://linktr.ee/visittheplace

01/30/2026

You’re invited! Come for the ice cream, stay for the joy! 💙

08/08/2025

Another summer AAC Camp has come to an end. It flew by but you know they say it does when you are having fun. We couldn't have done AAC Camp this summer without the support for Tate Behavioral staff, Springfield JCC, wonderful graduate students, and amazing communication parters. Please enjoy some photos of awesome kickball game, Walk, Talk, and Roll Event celebrating the campers, Amazing Yoyo Show, fun cooking and doing science.

08/01/2025

Week 4!
Can't believe we only have one more week of camp left. This week was a hot one so we had to be creative about movement breaks inside with scavenger hunts and a few extra dance parties. This week we did botanical painting and tie dye. The botanical painting or flower smashing came out more brown than colorful, but was an experience. We made blue and yellow fruit salad while some of the clinicians tried to sneak in some yellow vegetables and orange fruits. We read a book, Same but Different Too, and talked about how we are all similar and different and how that made us all pretty cool.

07/25/2025

Week 3 of AAC Camp is complete! We have hit a groove with our camp routine and adding communication opportunities throughout the day. We had amazing engagement this week with our theme with animals and vehicles reading, You Can't Take an Elephant on the Bus. Science and Music Therapy seems to be the overall groups favorite activities. Check out the photos of our campers working hard and having lots of fun.

07/25/2025

AAC camp would not be possible without all of our amazing graduate clinicians and undergraduate clinicians. We are blessed this years with some great colleagues to work along side with. The SLP field is lucky to have these upcoming therapists!

07/18/2025

Week 2 of AAC Camp has come to an end. We celebrated music and shared on thoughts and opinions on different musicians and bands. We wrote playlists, came up with our own rapper names, and conducted our friends working on fast/slow, loud/quiet, and go/stop. Most of our bandmates listened to the conductor. Every moment is for communication.

07/12/2025

July is Disability Pride Month!

🌈♿ What Does the Disability Pride Flag Mean?

The largest minority in the United States is people with disabilities. Disability Pride Flag is a powerful symbol of identity, visibility, and resistance. Each color and element represents a different part of the disability experience:

🔴 Red – Physical disabilities
🟡 Yellow – Neurodiversity & Cognitive and intellectual disabilities
⚪️White – Invisible & undiagnosed disabilities
🔷 Blue – Psychiatric disabilities
🟢 Green – Sensory disabilities
⚫ Black background – Mourning and rage over systemic injustice
🟡 Zigzag – The creativity, non-linearity, and resilience of the disability community

Thanks to the AAC Institute for this great explanation about the disability pride flag!

07/11/2025

Week 1 of AAC Camp :
Fun was had. We are proud of all of our brave campers who came to a new location, meeting lots of new campers and staff, as well as learning a new routine this week. We love how quick our camp community has developed. This week our communication partners were working on their strategies of creating communication opportunities for our campers. This included decreased yes/no questions, decreasing anticipating camper's needs, and using commenting and modeling to encourage engagement. We learned in our book that being a good friend does NOT mean eating your friends. NEVER eat your friends. If interested in a fun silly book check out I Just Ate My Friend. We explored play using big/large and small describers. In the older group we wrote about what a friend was in groups of two. In science we had fun being messy with our magic milk experiment playing with molecules and making cool colors. We jammed out with Rusty and threw stuff at monsters in our OT group.