A Friend’s Concern Maryellen Cooley’s Essay Citing Second-Grader Katie Johnson Wins Computer For Roosevelt Elementary

Katie Johnson’s favorite color is pink. One recent day her sweater was pink, her socks and shoes were pink. And the cushions of her wheelchair are pink.

Katie, 8, a second-grade student at Roosevelt Elementary School, has cerebral palsy. She can’t speak, but she still expresses herself.

Her facilitator, Judy Hanson, watches Katie’s face. Katie’s eyes and mouth are her lexicon.

Her eyes tell 1,000 stories, Hanson said.

Last spring Katie’s best friend, Maryellen Cooley, 8, entered a Microsoft computer design essay contest.

In a short letter, Maryellen asked Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to design a laptop computer that would allow Katie to speak into the computer, using her limited vocabulary, and be understood.

The system hasn’t yet been developed, but Maryellen won a state-of-the-art Pentium computer for Roosevelt School.

Maryellen is now being homeschooled by her mother, Storm Cooley, but the two girls still visit each other.

Two weeks ago Microsoft delivered the computer, which has a 32-inch computer screen for classroom presentations.

Katie delights in watching the big-screen computer. But for now, Katie must still spell out words using a laser light attached to the top of a baseball cap she wears.

To spell a word, Katie aims the light at the letters of a printed alphabet chart. To indicate the letter of her choice, Katie holds her light on the letter to the count of two. It’s a slow process.

“Do you have to work real hard to show people you’re smart?” Hanson asks Katie. Katie nods.

Even though Katie lacks fine-motor-control skills in her hands and fingers, she can type. Nancy Caputo, Katie’s speech therapist, tapes four of Katie’s fingers together, and with her free index finger, Katie laboriously types out words.

Caputo, Katie’s speech therapist, hopes that someday a system will be invented that will be able to “interpret Katie’s thoughts in the same way as the brain would.”

For now, the closest thing to Caputo’s dream is a system that would help Katie communicate by using prolonged eye-gazes to focus on words, pictures and objects. No laser light would be needed.

“I wish I could win the lottery so I could buy one for Katie and Andrea,” Caputo said, referring to the $20,000 system made by Lyte Optics in California.

Andrea Swenson, a fourth-grader at Roosevelt also has cerebral palsy.

Katie spends part of her day in Joan Polzine’s second-grade class.

When Caputo first introduced Katie to her classmates, she asked them to sit on their hands and zip their lips.

“The realization and frustration of not having a body you can control helps kids realize what she faces,” Caputo said.

“They have really come up with a lot of creative ways to communicate with Katie,” Caputo said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos