Profile
of Success - Denise Ghizzone"My life is complete with my Liberator. I wouldn't know what to do without it," states Denise Ghizzone.
Denise is from New Jersey and last year graduated from Brookdale Community College with an associate degree in English. Presently, she is involved in a project at Penn State, where she is an on-line mentor. As a mentor she communicates by e-mail with youth and adolescent who use augmentative and alternative communication. "People write me to ask me for advice," said Denise, "I also am a mentor for children. I really like talking to them."
Denise uses a Liberator to communicate with others, access the Internet, and deliver speeches at conferences.In April of 2000, she was honored to receive an award for being Effective Augmentative Communicator of the Year from the New Jersey Speech-Language-Hearing Association. At the awards ceremony, Denise presented the following acceptance speech:
"Good evening, everybody. I want to thank the New Jersey Speech-Language-Hearing Association for choosing me for the achiever of the year. It is a big honor because I have achieved a lot over the past year. My biggest achievement was graduating from Brookdale Community College with an associate degree in English. I just loved college and keeping busy.
"My speech pathologists are Amy Dougherty and Tracy Agate at Cerebral Palsy of Monmouth and Ocean Cities. They taught me how to program my Liberator and how to use the icon sequences to retrieve vocabulary. I have another job but it is only when I am needed. I am an ambassador for Prentke Romich Company. The company sends me out to different places to show my Liberator and how I use it in the community. I have a speakerphone and I call my friends whenever I want. I am a pro at calling people. Sometimes, I have trouble, but I always get my message across. Yes, I leave messages on people's machines and pagers. I drive some people crazy when I leave messages. Ha, ha, ha. They always call me back.
"My new thing is using my computer to access the Internet with my Liberator. I just love being on-line because I can talk to a lot of people at the same time. At first, it was difficult talking to a lot of people, but I can do it now. It takes being organized, but it can be done. I must admit, I enjoy talking on the telephone to people better. Well, that is what I am doing at the present time. My life is complete having my Liberator. I wouldn't know what to do without it. Thank you."