From Chapter 2 "TICKET to FREEDOM"

In Sept. 1972, the year the US Congress passed the Right to Education Law which allowed children with significant disabilities to attend public schools, I became an adjunct student at Penn State University’s Shenango Valley Campus. I excelled academically, making the Dean’s List, and that next fall, I began my undergraduate degree at that campus.  My academic advisor recommended that I be exempt from taking a language (something I later regretted), and she also thought I should not take the undergraduate speech requirement, which included giving public speeches. I went to talk to the instructor, who said “Annie, you have important things to say to the world so you might as well start in my class.”

Without a doubt, my college and graduate school education at Penn State is what I attribute my being able to sustain living and taveling independently in society.  Although my speech is impaired, I can articulate well enough to be understood about 80%, I am  told.  I instruct people to listen as if conversing with some one whose first language was something other this English.  This analogy came from a 3 year old child who  told her mother, "I can't understand Annie's language!"  It works every time and significantly improves communication, especially by telephone.