He has experienced so many firsts with it. I will never forget the first time I heard "I love you" or the first time he called grandma and talked to her on the phone using "his" voice. The first time we went to the zoo with it and he got to tell us where we were going and what animal he wanted to see next. Another huge thing is his ability to "tell" me whats wrong. If he is crying he will usually calm down the moment he sees me reach for his ipad. He knows he will be able to tell me whats wrong and we aren't just going to go through yes/no for 5min trying to figure it out. Not to say he doesn't have his moments but his tantrums disappeared with the ability to communicate his needs.
He can now tell me "I need help, please take off my back brace", or , " I need help, my tummy hurts". He also loves to "chat" with it and especially enjoys telling me "I don't know", "thats cool", "no way", etc.
It didn't take long for us to realize his reading and math skills were further along then we thought. His inattentiveness was much to do with him being bored during our sessions. We still use his felt board often but it is used in conjunction with his ipad and educational apps. He stays much more focused and for the most part he enjoys school time now. We love proloquo2go and often I put together boards right during our school sessions. Love the ease with which boards can be created and the ability to layer boards for our needs. Now he can interact with all parts of our school sessions even things like history and science. I have boards so he can even direct his art projects and tell me what he wants to add next/paint next/ etc. We are working on more switch accessibility with the ipad but even if there is never great switch access for it that would be okay. Eye gaze may not be the typical way to use it but it works for Junior and we have made our own little modifications to help.
Junior now knows at least a couple hundred symbols and we have realized he must be reading what is below many(considering he can typically be shown them once and doesn't need to again be reminded what they are even though many look very similar).
I still think back to when we first heard about the ipad and I really wasn't so sure it would work for him. I mean it is a touch screen and Junior has little to no use of his hands. His teacher brought it over and let him try it for a few days and we quickly saw his ability to use it even without his hands. After watching him with it for a few days and seeing him use eye gaze even with the games we knew it was just what he needed so did our own research and raised the money ourselves. We looked at several communication apps and saw that proloquo2go allows the most personalization and had nice large boxes so we could see what he was looking at with his eye gaze. I had run ins with several people who thought we were just wanting the "next big thing" and were not willing to consider the possibility that it might really benefit him. The school district didn't see it as an option for him, again "he can't use his hands". The ipad and communication app changed his life from the very first day we got it and I am so glad I did not listen to those who said he "can't".
After 2 years of near constant use Junior's ipad is starting to have some glitches and get slow. Since having him lose his voice for any period of time is just not an option(think of it as you suddenly losing the ability to talk), we are now working on getting him a ipad 2 or 3. We are talking to the school district since it is a huge part of how all his educational needs are met and is part of all his goals on his IEP. His home instruction teacher wants to be able to put whats on the ipad screen up on to the tv screen during his sessions(the ipad 2 or 3 would allow this). When he isn't feeling well it would still make some school work possible. It would also allow him to have the ipad in front of him so we could do things where he is touching the screen but he would be able to look up at the tv to see what he is doing(leaning down to see the ipad while he touches it is not easy for him). Praying things move quickly so he has a new ipad in place before this one completely stops working.
Ipad use, pics from the past year
art time
learning about snow during science time
math
picking the items to put in the Christmas ornament he was making
Telling me he needs a treatment
more school time activity
painting, the ipad is set up so he can tell me what colors he wants
history, he was learning about the mail system
I always love reading about Junior and this post is so positive - I love it! Way to go, Junior!
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, Emma trialed many AAC devices and we chose the Eco2 with ECOpoint. It actually uses eye gaze to navigate. I wonder if something like this might work for Junior? We trialed it through her preschool and are in the process of trying to get insurance to pay for one for her. Fingers crossed!