More Augmentative Communication stuff....

Today, we met with the Aug. Comm. therapist at our therapy office. She is incredibly knowledgeable and up to date on all kinds of neat, new stuff. We have known her for years and off and on had evals with her for different things. Today we met to discuss the Ipad and what our options were and what she thought about our ideas. She is totally excited as we are! She had another speech therapist there to work with Faith on the Dinovox V, another touch screen device that uses the PECS system. Faith had never tried this particular one and she had so much fun! They tried using a stylus pen with her, since she cannot isolate her pointer finger. She picked right up on it and within minutes was tapping away at different pictures. After every successful touch she had to stop and get my attention to show me that she had done it.

So Stinking Cute!

This was JUST the confirmation I had been looking for. Now I feel so much more sure that the Ipad will work for her! I can see her window of opportunity open with the birds flying in and she is ready for something! We discussed all our different options with the Ipad and some of the smaller, cheaper apps that are now available that work similar to Proloquo2Go. I have found two that are under $25 and she suggested trying a few of them first when we are first starting out. Which I think is a great idea to test the waters.

In response to a few questions I have gotten Faith has had some experience with aug. comm devices like the Logan, PECS and a few switch programs. But she has not done well with any of them. We felt like she was just not developmentally ready to understand how they worked but now things seem different. She is receptive to anything with touchscreens and lots of pictures and technology! Not to mention that I have HATED every single one of them for various reasons including bulkiness, weight, ridiculous recording apparatus and stupid PECS books that must be dragged along with various devices just to name a few. So after seeing her responses and the promise of this new technology on the horizon I feel like it is the perfect time to introduce a device to her and so do the therapists. So it looks like this is the path we will go down. I am excited and thrilled at the prospect of Faith being able to tell me things with real words.