About Us
Barbara Dean Schacker
I founded Pathways Publishing and Strokefamily.org in 1997. My vision was to create an online resource to fill the gap between medical treatment and the needs of families with loved ones recovering from stroke and traumatic brain injury. I saw a need to bring everyone together--stroke and head-injury survivors, their family and friends, speech pathologists, therapists and rehabilitation professionals--by creating self-help programs that could be used to extend recovery far beyond the usual limits. Since the 1970s, I have researched and designed programs and guides to provide the tools, knowledge and method to make this happen. I am the originator of the “Sensory Trigger Method” a non-medical way to make new pathways in the brain for speech recovery using the brain’s own natural ability to learn through the sense of touch.
This long journey began when I found a way to get my "untreatable" global aphasic father to talk again 9 years post stroke. In 1973 I began to research the brain and language and to work with neurolinguistic scientists. In 1984 I began research and work with speech pathologists to design a computer program for speech recovery. After 3 years of development and testing, I published the first natural-voice software for speech therapy and home applications in 1988. I was honored in 1991 to receive the John's Hopkins University Certificate of Achievement Award for improving the quality of life for the disabled through technology. Reader's Digest featured my father's amazing speech recovery and my story in the June issue of 1991. Since then I have continued to research the brain, alternative therapies and treatments for stroke as well as speech recovery. In 1999, I created the first online talking software for aphasia.
In 2008, I co-founded and created speechrecovery.com, a joint project with Bill Connors, SLP-CCC, who believes as I do that family members play a critical role in their loved one's speech and brain recovery and that new approaches, communication techniques, programs and tools can and should be made available to them. When families are brought into the picture the chances for speech recovery greatly increase. By accessing this enormous wealth of resources both professionals and family can create a positive, hopeful and intensive environment that can really make the difference.
Currently, I am administrating Strokefamily.org, researching and working on new programs and working on my husband's speech and stroke recovery. In addition, I now work with other stroke and head trauma survivors under the auspices of Stone Mountain Counseling Center for Neurological treatment in New Paltz, NY. This requires learning an enormous amount of new information. With this new information and experience, I hope to invent and create new techniques for speech recovery. It is my hope that I will be able to show how therapists and family can work more closely together to improve speech and brain recovery. I have worked in the field of speech and stroke recovery as a researcher, Sensory Trigger speech facilitator and publisher for over 30 years.
Michael Schacker
For many of these years, my husband and I worked together to create programs for speech practice. The voice that speaks on the home page
is Michael Schacker, my husband, who by a strange coincidence lost his
speech April 2, 2008 due to a massive stroke after emergency heart
surgery to replace his torn aorta. He is currently in the process
of recovering his speech with The Sensory Trigger Method and speech
therapy. I am very proud of him and very proud and amazed at the
progress he has made. You can follow his progress here: Breakthroughs
When I looked at Michael's CAT scan after his stroke, I was heart broken. The extent of his brain damage is about 20 times the size that would normally wipe out all speech and language. The neurologist told me that he would have “no speech or language recovery”. His brain damage even crossed over to the right side of the brain, so in addition to severe aphasia and speech apraxia, he has motor apraxia in his "good" left hand. Yet, it damaged very little of his cortex and he has most of his memory and apparently a large part of his knowledge and thinking skills.
I started using the Sensory Trigger Method while Michael was still in a coma. He made his first speech breakthroughs using the Sensory Trigger Method. At first, Michael did not respond very well to speech or physical therapy. For 5 months Michael repeated the word "read" for almost everything. Then I was able to move him into the Northeast Center for Special Care, with their friendly, open atmosphere and innovative, cutting-edge Truamatic Brain Injury Recovery Program. Here I was allowed to place a computer in his room and work with him extensively. The combination of my programs and the Center's expert and innovative therapy programs has been very successful so far. My hope is that many more breakthroughs will be made as we continue this hard work and that he will recover his speech, writing and functionality.
Michael Schacker is the author of "A Spring Without Bees, how
colony collapse disorder has endangered our food supply." by The Lyons
Press, 2008 and
