On vacation with my family, miles away from Joey, we passed a fire station. My own four-year-old shouted out “FIRE ENGINE!” and I found my fingers immediately itching to push the buttons on Joey’s AAC device. Just the notion of a fire engine stimulates my motor memory. My index finger twitches and I visually see the icons on the screen – hit ride– hit fire engine (top right on the screen). I had not been thinking about Joey, or alternative communication, or anything but beach traffic and what we’d find for lunch. Yet suddenly there I was, with a twitchy index finger. I didn’t even respond to my daughter’s exclamation, because my first instinct was to respond with the device. [Read more…]
Art Project Success! Using sticker-backed felt to give Joey independence in art
Although Joey loves art projects I often struggle to find appropriate projects he can access easily. Painting projects always please him, but it usually ends up being a rather large mess and I can only get paint on someone else’s carpet so many times a month. Painting also tends to be over quickly and does not always allow him to be overly independent or purposeful.
To prepare for Joey’s upcoming beach trip we read Penguin Goes on Vacation by Salina Yoon. I wanted to do a penguin art project but black paint intimidated me, and construction paper tends to be hard for Joey to hold without crumbling or ripping. [Read more…]
Lobster/Mobster/Monster?
Sometimes I find it takes a long time to explain Joey’s successes because there is so much background needed to set the stage for each story. Sometimes it involves explaining where words are on his AAC device, or how he uses his AAC device and words to communicate, or even what an AAC device is. These stories get complicated. That being said, read on because I think you’ll be as proud of Joey as I am. [Read more…]
Teaching Rhyming Part Two
Last week we talked about the importance of exposing Joey to the phonemic awareness activities such as rhyming games to help prepare him for skills later in life. Here are some of the rhyming games and activities we are working on so far. [Read more…]
Teaching Joey Phonemic Awareness
“I want to eat the mueberries!” I made the puppet say, “What rhymes with mueberries?” Joey scanned his hand over the two pictures of fruit on his tray – bananas and blueberries. Then, instead of handing me the picture like I expected he went into his words and said blueberries. “Exactly! Mueberries/Blueberries rhymes!” I celebrated, and then made my puppet pretend to eat up the mueberries while Joey looked on confused. I don’t think he appreciated my game although he was fine answering my rhyming questions. [Read more…]
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