‘Triumph over tragedy.’ Tri-Cities student now has a voice, a brush and kudos from a governor

If you ask Gabe Scheel’s teachers, they’ll tell you he’s just like every other kid in the classroom.

He answers questions at lectures, interacts with his classmates and even gets the occasional peck on the cheek from a cute girl.

“I love that he’s happy to be there and learning,” said Stacey Regan, his special education teacher at Ray Reynolds Middle School. “I love his sassy attitude... He’s just a typical 8th-grade boy.”

Gabe, 13, is among the 4% of U.S. students who live with a nonverbal learning disability. He is unable to talk and is paralyzed after suffering a traumatic brain injury when he was younger.

But that hasn’t stopped him from learning that he’s got a creative side.

Earlier this week, Gabe was recognized by the Pasco School Board and Washington state for his dedication to learning and for a piece of artwork he submitted for the 2022-23 school district calendar. He named the painting “Fun Joy.”

His submission — painted using “eye-tracking technology” — even caught the attention of Gov. Jay Inslee, himself a longtime amateur artist.

“Your story is a testament to the ability to triumph over tragedy,” the governor wrote in his letter to Gabe.

“Your expression through art has already inspired others to action, and many others will undoubtedly be inspired to overcome their own adversities because of your leadership,” he wrote.

Inslee concluded with this bit of advice: “We hope that you lean into your strengths, cultivate your creativity, and continue to inspire those around you to grow beyond their limits.”

Brian Moreno, past chair of the Washington State Commission on Hispanic Affairs, presented the letter to his family this week, along with the Shining Light Award for serving “as a beacon of leadership and inspiration to all Washingtonians.”

Gabe’s story is chronicled in an 11-minute documentary by the district, which notes, “Gabe’s technologies and support team were made possible by voter-approved levies.”

“Even more than the money, just watching that video and watching the human factors here at play. The relationships and the learning that is going on between teacher and student and staff — both ways. Everyone’s growing and (it’s) very inspirational,” said board President Scott Lehrman.

Gabe’s story

When he was 5, Gabe suffered a seizure while taking a bath and drowned. The incident ultimately caused an anoxic brain injury, which paralyzed him.

“He’s come so far because when his injury happened we were given organ donation papers. And they had another test to run before they said he was gone,” Tonya Scheel said. “From there to where we’re at now, is it where we want to be? No. But it’s way farther than what the doctors even said.”

The accident left his family devastated but they still had hope.

He can still communicate through non-verbal cues and facial movements. He is still the boy they loved and raised, just changed.

Before the COVID pandemic, the Scheel family was living in Walla Walla. An in-home speech therapist suggested the family try setting up an eye-gaze system to help redevelop his communication.

He began using a Tobii Dynavox eye tracking system around the time he was 10.

Gabe’s father, Michael, and Tonya are both educators who originally graduated from Pasco High School. The couple ultimately decided to move back to Tri-Cities during the pandemic.

Gabe started attending public school last school year, starting his 7th-grade year at Ray Reynolds.

Over the last year, he’s made significant leaps and gains in assembling the building blocks of communication and core learning concepts.

“I don’t think the every-day person who doesn’t work in the life skills classroom sees what a huge deal it is, but it’s huge,” said his teacher.

An artist emerges

Last spring — as Gabe began painting with the assistance of a robotic limb and the eye-gaze program guiding his brush — the staff had the idea to enter one of his pieces into the district calendar art contest.

The theme, roughly, was “our future is bright.”

“What could be brighter than Gabe?” asks paraeducator Wendy Nansel.

His submission ultimately didn’t make the cut by voters for the calendar. But staff and teachers wanted to congratulate Gabe for expressing himself and overcoming adversity.

His dad said his teachers have been the core contributor to Gabe’s academic and social progress.

“I just want to make sure the teachers understand how important they are to us,” he said. “Because we can get kind of depressed and down on everything, but then we see what they do with him — it kind of brightens us up a little, too.”

“He’s learning. He’s having fun, for the most part. He laughs, he smiles. He makes other people laugh and smile,” Tonya Scheel said.

He paints in the classroom about twice a week. And his teachers say they plan on programming a button that will ask his teacher to paint so that he can do it daily — but only if he gets all his schoolwork done before the end of class.

New technology

The technology that Gabe uses to speak, paint and do schoolwork is still fairly new and complex to operate, said Betsy Furler, founder and CEO of Houston-based For All Abilities, a solutions business focused on disabilities in the workforce.

In order for it to work, the user has to keep his head steady, focused on the screen, eyes fixed on an item to select it, and keep the program calibrated.

“It’s very difficult but it really does open up the world of communication for people who in the past didn’t have that,” said Furler, who’s worked as a speech pathologist since 1992.

“I think it’s important for people to know how hard this kid is working,” she added.

The Pasco teachers also had to work hard, too, programming his device with words and curriculum.

Eye-gaze also can open up a new world of independence. Furler said people have used eye-gaze technology and programs to control the lights of their home, order food, make music, surf the web, use social media and do office work.

The industry is working to combine eye-gazing programs with user muscle movement to try and make communication faster for users.

Others also are looking at using electrical activity in the brain by way of electroencephalogram, a test often used to detect epilepsy, to aid eye-gaze.

“There’s some exciting things happening,” she said.