My name is Kristy Lipe and I’m in my thirties. I’m the Mississippi PRC Ambassador! I’m originally from Memphis , Tennessee but I live in Long Beach, Mississippi now. I have Cerebral Palsy but I don’t let that stop me from doing anything at all! I did Taekwondo for eight years and I'm a 3rd degree black belt and three time world champion in A T A. I was home schooled through Gateway Christian Schools after 7th grade. I graduated from home school in May 2009 and I did a Continuing Education program at Moody institute . My certificate is in Ministry and Leadership from there. I love anything to do with fitness and wellness!
I’m a switch scanner and I use Unity 144 on the Accent 1400. My first communication device was the DeltaTalker and I started on it the week before kindergarten in fall 1996. I did a lot of my written work and homework cabled to the Mac. I got to do a lot of cool stuff with the DeltaTalker in elementary school but my favorite would be getting to be Stage Manager for the spring musical , The Music Man! My music teacher let me bring my talker to every play practice and really empowered me to help her direct everything! That was an awesome way to end my fifth grade year! Then when I was in sixth grade I was involved with the Student Council and took my talker to every one of the meetings to help plan activities.
I got my Eco 14 right before my senior year of high school in 2008! I was so excited to get this device because it was the first one to be able to text message. As a special needs teenager that was so awesome, because not only did it help me stay connected to my friends , it also gave me so much more independence from my parents because they could text me wherever I was at with my friends. I was also excited the Eco 14 had word prediction because I fell behind in reading, spelling, everything like that early on in elementary school and once I had word prediction everything changed! I couldn't spell or read very well until after high school but I basically taught how to read by working through a taekwondo leadership manual to get my next instructor trainee collar . So having word prediction really opened up a whole new world for me!
I would love to help more in the schools along the coast of Mississippi! So please don’t be afraid to contact me through AAC Language Lab! I love getting out in the community and teaching people how awesome assistive technology really is!
