Today we went to see the communication specialist...in the hope of
finding a way Veronika can communicate, the next step in her transition
to school in preparation for next year....
well our appointment
went really well....what we were basically trying to find was a suitable
way using technology that Veronika can use to communicate. Veronika
only says a few words consistently(Mum, up, more and no), we have been
teaching Veronika Auslan sign language(I started when she was around 6
months old, but it took well over a year before we got one back from
her) and now Veronika would have 80 + signs she uses often putting 2
together (eg more + chocolate).
But because Veronika has Down
Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy left side hemiplegia, her signs have been
modified by her to accommodate her left hand, and thus there are less
than a handful of people who can actually tell what she is signing.
At
the same time, Veronika is very good at answering questions with a yes
or no answer, by either nodding or shaking her head, or if it's a really
definite no, she will say no, likewise if it's a definite yes, she will
say yea.
So the aim of today was to find an app for Veronika's
iPad that she can use to communicate with when she is in kinder next
year, and we want to make sure there is enough time teach her how to use
it. The communication specialist we saw specializes in communication
with technology, using various devices as well as iPad. We decided that
the iPad would probably be the best for Veronika considering she already
has one. He was also very impressed with how well Veronika can navigate
her iPad, and how accurate she is with her fine motor skills at
touching the right part of the screen, even when the button is quite
small.
We looked at quite a few apps, and how complex they could
become...and decided that the one touch = one word would be most
suitable for Veronika and the level she should be capable of. We are
thinking about a minimum of 50 icons, but possibly 70 on the page with
core words, then an option for 'fringe' words that she can use to expand
on. There was one particular app that looked really good Touch Chat HD
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/touchchat-hd-aac/id398860728?mt=8
The
aim is that at the moment as an example is that Veronika can sign
'more' then 'bubbles'....but with the use using her iPad as a
communication device, we can start to teach her sequence patterns, so
instead of signing 'more' + "bubbles', we can teach her to use the iPad
to say 'I want more' and then hopefully 'I want more bubbles please'.
Teaching her some sentence structure.
So the next step is to
borrow an iPad off the communication specialist for a few days, to see
how well it does suit Veronika, before we go and spend that kind of
money on an app that might not be suitable. Its great that there is the
option to do this, as communication apps aren't cheap and we need to
make sure it's the right one.
I know that Veronika has a lot to
say, and I belive that she will talk at some point. But in the mean time
this should hopefully reduce some of the frustration that she is
experiencing when we don't know what she is trying to 'sign' to us.
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