A printer, two laminators and access to Canva. That’s all this Fort Worth mom needs to change the way that Texans talk, right from her living room.
Kendra Frank is a wife, mother of two and founder of the nonprofit “Elliott’s Voice.” Her organization, which she founded in 2023, aims to provide accessible visual supports to
children and adults who are nonverbal or have limited verbal abilities, according to the Elliott’s Voice Facebook.
“No matter what your ability is, you deserve the right to communicate in every aspect of your life, in every game, in everything,” Frank said.
Elliott’s Voice is named after Frank’s 4-year-old son, who has autism and childhood apraxia of speech (CAS),
a disorder that prevents people from commanding their muscles to produce intelligible words, even though they know what to say, according to Apraxia Kids. An estimated 1 in 1000 children have CAS, according to Apraxia Kids.
Frank’s work, she said, shares existing resources for nonverbal individuals, but she primarily focuses on making inexpensive augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) boards, which allow people with
verbal limitations to point at a word to communicate, according to the Organization for Autism Research. Around 5 million Americans may benefit from AAC, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Frank makes custom communication boards for games to include her son, with icons signifying when it’s their turn or what they want to do during their turn. Courtesy of Kendra Frank
Frank told the Star-Telegram that she founded the organization while grieving her late father. “I had to get
off that bathroom floor and stop crying and put my dad’s grief into something,” Frank said.
She realized that organizations needed their own communications boards while at the Fort Worth Zoo with her son, she said. His iPad, which communicates for him through an app, died, and though she had a binder with a zoo animal board, it didn’t have the animals at the Fort Worth Zoo.
“I thought, why could not places like the Fort Worth Zoo have a dedicated communication board that I could download from their website or print off, or have it where I can check out?” Frank said.
She designs, prints and laminates custom AAC boards for anything from Candy Land to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden to the Fort Worth Fire Department. These boards include words that are specific to certain scenarios.
She posts them on the Elliott’s Voice Facebook page, and some can be found on company websites, such as the Fort Worth Zoo’s. Frank said she prints up to 1,000 boards for events and organizations. High-tech AAC devices and iPad apps exist, but the AAC devices can be up to $17,000, and iPads can run out of battery or break.
Low-tech communication boards like Frank’s exist, such as the free boards on Lingraphica, but they often
have general terms and lack the items or actions at every possible location. Frank’s boards allows people to communicate more about specific items or attractions in their environment.
“A lot of these communication boards are just wants and needs, like ‘I want this drink,’ ‘I need the bathroom,’” Frank said. “Do you want to just say that, if you couldn’t talk? Would you just want to say, ‘I’m cold?’”
Frank’s goals are to equip every person and location with communication boards: games, teachers, schools, airports, attractions and first responders. She started a petition on Change.org pushing for a state law — Elliott’s Law — requiring all first responders to carry a communication board.
She has made AAC boards for a variety of games and holidays, such as “Don’t Break the Ice,” July
Fourth, New Years Eve and “Greedy Granny.” Frank said her son has even asked for a board that’s specific to his Peppa Pig playhouse. She has also reached out an donated custom communication boards to attractions and companies across North Texas.
4-year-old Elliott stands in front of the communication board posted at Burton Hill Elementary playground. Frank said that these boards are not ideal for communication, but they spread awareness about what communication boards are. Courtesy of Kendra Frank
Elliott’s Voice grants
communication boards to emergency responders, too. These boards include a pain scale, anatomy and items like a hearing aid, insulin or a blanket.
Frank
is trying to implement Elliott’s Law, which would require all first responders to carry a communication board with emergency-specific vocabulary, like this board. Courtesy of Kendra Frank
Frank has donated communication boards to many police and fire departments in North Texas, according to her Facebook.
Jackie Hartman, fire chief at Benbrook Fire Department,
said they adopted 14 of Frank’s communication boards for each vehicle. Hartman said he did not know what communication boards were initially, but he and the medics believed that it would be useful in many scenarios.
“This board is not just important to your child or anyone else’s child, but this could be used across the board in our EMS for bilingual patients, patients that are having strokes and just for regular kids,” Hartman
said about his conversation with Frank.
Hartman said the department has already used the boards successfully since April. He didn’t understand why other fire departments haven’t responded to Frank, Hartman said.
“This board works for everybody.” “I think to take on this, if you will call it, project and push this, she’s done a fantastic job,” Hartman said. “I love
what she’s doing.”
Frank is also on the Fort Worth mayor’s committee on persons with disabilities and the disability committee at DFW Airport, according to Frank.
She is also working on a book about her journey and has received special recognition from Fort Worth for Apraxia Awareness Day on May 14. Her ultimate goal is to have these communication boards
everywhere: “Every stadium, every concert, every grocery store, every toy, every game,” Frank said.
Helping just one child, though, is enough for her, Frank said. After donating communication boards to the Benbrook Fire Department, a firefighter thanked Frank and told her the department used it with a nonverbal child, and it worked.
“If that’s the only child I
have, I’ve done it,” Frank said.
