Today, my little son's speech teacher sat down with me and showed me how to use his new "talker".
My Andrew is eleven and mostly nonverbal.
I often think how hard it must be to not be able to share his wants and needs.
Sure,
I know my boy pretty well...
But, there is no way I can tell if he wants to have spaghetti or pizza when we go to Fazoli's or where he would like to go on our Saturday adventures.
Now,
I have a way.
With pictures from the web
and my digital camera,
our wonderful speech teacher and I are going to fill his talker up with choices.
This Saturday,
Andrew is in charge of our outing.
We are going where he wants to go.
I can not wait!
I am so happy for my boy.
I know it will take time,
but I think he will love having a choice...
a voice.
Today,
as I type,
my smile is wide and I have hope and happiness for my son,
for the one I call "Roo Roo"...
for my best guy!
I pray that together we can find a way to make his feelings known.
I still will say, "no" when I need to,
but at least he will have a chance to tell me he's mad
without resorting to self injury or outwardly focused distress.
Tonight as I count my blessings,
I count among them,
wonderful hardworking speech teachers,
beautiful children who want to communicate
and that brilliant nameless someone
who created his amazing machine.
May your life be filled with lovely conversation,
with blessings
with choices
with amazing adventures!
2 comments:
How has the talker been working? Does "Roo Roo" enjoy being able to communicate more efficiently?
Andrew is able to use it to indicate simple choices. Sometimes though, he chooses something he clearly didn't mean. Like the day he told me repeatedly he wanted a cereal bar even though he put his shoes on when he heard me offer donuts for Saturday breakfast. Eventually when given a cereal bar, he came over and chose the right icon. It is difficult but I have hope it will get easier for him with time.
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