This year the University of Washington will confer degrees on more than 10,000 students. One of those students receiving an advanced degree from the psychology department is Kristin Rytter, a remarkable woman with a remarkable achievement.

KING

Kristin Rytter is a remarkable woman with a remarkable achievement.

Rytter's professors call her brilliant and funny. The world calls her disabled - severely disabled - by cerebral palsy.  And after nearly two decades of work at the UW, she's happy if you called her "doctor."

"Some people don't think I'm smart," writes Rytter.

At first, people get that impression of Rytter: She's wheelchair-bound, profoundly limited by cerebral palsy, and can't speak or control her hands or feet. Rytter communicates through a helper, who translates the personal code Rytter and her father developed years ago - a code of head and eye movements which indicate different letters.

Last fall Rytter defended her doctoral thesis after 17 years of post-graduate study. It included a Power Point presentation with Rytter, using her head, to tap out commands on the computer. The title of her presentation was "Improving pre-literacy experiences for toddlers with disabilities."

Dr. Gene Edgar with the UW School of Education was on that committee and has worked with Rytter for years. He sees a gentle soul in this wheel chair as smart as she is tough.

"She's the most tenacious person I've ever met - really, really brilliant, incredibly smart with an ability to conceptualize ideas and tie them together with other ideas," said Edgar.

Rytter had plenty of help as she pursued her doctorate of course. Rytter needs help with almost everything and is rarely alone.

She paints occasionally with a brush rigged to an old pair of glasses, keeps in touch laboriously by e-mail with friends and teachers and never forgets the value of learning.

"It gives us power," writes Rytter.

The good humor that won her the "most continually cheerful" award in fourth grade and got her smiling through years of special ed is still evident in this adult doctor of psychology.

Her next project is setting up an online consulting service to help parents and caregivers communicate with kids - kids like the kid she was: challenged, but hungry to engage the world.

"So they can participate in life," writes a smiling Rytter.