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The ability to read and write would be a foundation of Matt’s independence. These faculties weren't completely lost, but fractured—leaving him with functions that were agonizingly tedious and disconnected. Ironically, as I worked to help Matt find his written voice, I was still searching for my own. For the first sixteen months of this journey, my personal journal remained empty. Between the exhaustion and the sheer weight of our reality, I simply had no words and chose to limit precious time contemplating ‘why.’ In my daily devotions, I merely did my best to trust God in the silence. I did, however, feel a global imperative to commit some of my scarce time and energy to providing regular Facebook updates from the front lines, upholding this vital connection and interdependence with the many people who continued to faithfully cheer us on.
Restoring his literacy meant fighting on three fronts at once: redeveloping the motor control for handwriting and typing, rebuilding the mental strength to convert thoughts into words, and regaining comprehension to understand and apply what he read.
We prioritized the first front—developing the hand dexterity and fine motor control needed for both handwriting and typing. Handwriting was initially a battle to form letters correctly and to increase speed, while typing presented its own hurdles in finger coordination and movement.
Matt’s initial attempts at writing mirrored a back-to-basics approach, initiating with simple recognition before building toward more complex tasks. At the beginning of the year, we introduced flashcards to facilitate letter and number recognition. I watched as his brain would frequently pause, almost as if he were manually cycling through a 'Rolodex' of options before he could find and name the correct one. Although Matt did better with numbers than letters, relaying a string of digits—like zip codes—was still a hurdle. To combat this, Matt devised his own system: he would repeat the "tricky" numbers individually before attempting to recite the whole sequence. Both strategies revealed an engineer's methodical approach, with the next step being to design a better indexing arrangement.
Converting this information to pen and paper proved laborious; this progression required immense patience. Matt had to sound out each word, verbally identify the letter, recall its symbol, and finally commit it to paper. At some point, he grew frustrated while trying to identify the letter 'B' and audibly invoked a soon-to-be-favorite expression: 'Kill the B!' From then on, that battle cry was aimed at whatever letter happened to be evading his grasp. Though he gradually gained confidence and better technique, his writing speed was, generously, about as fast as a very cautious grandmother driving.
To reduce cognitive overload, we provided a reference chart of capital and lowercase letters. This external aid allowed Matt to focus on the mechanics of printing instead of splitting his energy between physical and mental demands. It took time to integrate, but the support proved indispensable. We moved from copying short sentences to more practical applications, such as composing Easter card messages and writing five handwritten thank-you notes. By early summer, after months of daily practice, Matt’s reliance on the chart began to fade. He produced a few words from rote memory and—to our delight—even verbally spelled a word aloud for the first time.
By August, we were ready to raise the stakes. I gave Matt a journal to tackle the next obstacle: spelling and written expression. To promote letter retrieval, I used rhymical drills, launching with a familiar three-letter word like "fat" and asking him to generate sound-alike words such as "cat," "hat," or "mat." This exercise often triggered a mental "lockout"—a silent struggle where he knew what he wanted to say but couldn't find the path to the letters. Even with daily reinforcement, it took weeks before he could list more than two or three words in a sequence, a routine we maintained for several months.
The journal’s second purpose was to encourage original thought through drafting simple sentences about his day. Even with the mechanics of letter formation becoming more familiar, the process remained a protracted, multi-step ordeal. In a perplexing glitch of retrieval, he might write a letter correctly five times, only to substitute an entirely different one on the sixth. His first entries centered on his sister’s wedding in September, serving to crystallize the cherished memories of that day. While preceding pages had been cluttered with cross-outs and spelling errors, within a month, he reached a significant breakthrough: writing several sentences without the aid of a letter chart or outside guidance.
As letter retrieval stabilized, typing evolved from a secondary role to a core component of his routine. Matt’s progress was initially hampered by physical obstacles, notably spasticity in his right fourth and fifth fingers that made hitting the Enter key a deliberate ordeal. Much like his experience with a pen, he lacked the ingrained muscle memory required for fluid movement. The process was brutally manual: he had to scan the keyboard for each character, locate it, and consciously reposition his fingers before every strike.
In the fall, Matt enrolled in an online typing class, initially targeting the home and top rows. By December, he was using all three rows, with his left hand beginning to operate with newfound autonomy. He even successfully typed up personalized gift certificates as Christmas presents. By February, he reached a speed of nine words per minute. It was a modest number by most standards, but it showed he was incrementally surpassing the plodding pace of his handwriting days. By May 2020, he hit twelve wpm—and best of all, he achieved some of it through touch-typing, without looking at his hands. Like an inchworm, Matt was steadily recovering his written voice.
The new year brought a poignant moment of self-reflection. Matt added a comment to one of my Facebook progress updates: "Matt is here. It is impressive that I am writing to you." Those few words were more than a status update; they were proof that Matt recognized his own transformation. By Spring, his mental stamina had also increased. He successfully composed and typed an entire paragraph about Super Bowl Sunday and the Saratoga Springs’ Annual Chowder Fest—the first time he had written at length without losing focus. With only minor guidance to organize his thoughts, he was moving beyond fragmented sentences and into the realm of storytelling.
These gains in literacy quickly manifested in practical ways. Under Mike’s guidance, Matt undertook writing checks to pay his bills, restoring a piece of his financial independence. By April, the complexity increased further as Matt actively helped file and sign the extensive paperwork for the sale of his house.
Emboldened by these successes, we decided to “boldly go where no man has gone before.” We embarked on the ambitious undertaking of drafting a lesson plan and a PowerPoint presentation titled "Computer Engineering 101." More than just an exercise in typing or spelling, this project symbolized his desire to regain his professional identity—channeling his energy towards sharing his expertise and passion for teaching once again. This project highlights the striking duality of Matt’s life during this period: even as he pursued a future career, he couldn’t let up on the daily grind to acquire fundamental skills.
Therefore, as Matt was busy applying these achievements to everyday life, I launched a more structured "classroom" routine in September. I took on the role of an elementary teacher: instructing, encouraging, and testing elementary-level work. I introduced the Brain Quest workbook series to cover language arts, spelling, reading, and math. We opened at a third-grade level and, within three months, moved up to the fifth-grade curriculum. In the English section, Matt had to analyze short passages and answer comprehension questions. When asked to recite aloud, it proved to be a double-edged sword. The cognitive energy expended on sounding out each word prevented him from absorbing the story's content. Even a few pages of 101 Dalmatians left him mentally drained.
Matt enjoys reading on his own for 10- to 20-minute stretches and has successfully finished three Harry Potter books so far this year. Notably, his pace has improved, dropping from three months to two, then to just one, for his latest book. However, deciphering the text was only part of the challenge; content acquisition was another. For Matt, the storyline often slips away from him, like chasing a fading mist—briefly revealing a detail one moment, vanishing the next—even despite his prior knowledge of these favorites. But no matter what he understands on the page or remembers afterward, it remains his sanctuary, a place where he can escape to another time and place where the spotlight isn’t laser-focused on his recovery.
This drive for recreational literature ignited an interest in studying academic material. He commenced with short publications from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a necessary stepping stone before tackling content-rich textbooks. By March 2020, Matt enrolled in an online Princeton University Computer Architecture class and opened his first textbook assignment. The fifty-page first chapter was a huge commitment; though he hoped to manage eight to ten pages a day, the cognitive load proved, for now, to be too much. That willingness to try was, in itself, a victory. Matt’s success comes from fighting on multiple fronts—fueled by dogged perseverance and balanced by the restorative power of free time. We will continue to explore every avenue to ensure his forward momentum never wavers.
© 2026, Sarah Watkins
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