Helping Children Recover from Brain Injury
Joey loves fire trucks. Whenever I show him something red, he’ll often say fire engine on his eye gaze device after he labels it. So when I came across a fire engine book I figured I should try it with him. To be honest, the book does not have a lot of the qualities I usually look for when I’m choosing a good book to use with Joey, but it did have a dog and a fire engine. Since we are going for interactions and not quality literature, I thought we’d give it a go. [Read more…]
I love when I find a simple picture book that gives so many great opportunities to model using Joey’s AAC device (and builds in some academic skills as well!). My most recent discovery is Oops! Pounce! Quick! Run! By Mike Twohy.
Oops! Pounce! Quick! Run! is an alphabet book, with each page giving just one or two words in alphabetic order to tell a story. It opens with a mouse Asleep, when suddenly a Ball bounces onto his lap, forcing him to Catch it. He is quickly stalked by a Dog, who sticks his Eye into the mouse hole. Upon seeing his ball, he sticks his Feet in. You get the idea. It’s simple, yet tells a clear (but silly) story about a dog and a mouse having a fight over a ball. What’s more, it uses many of the words on Joey’s AAC device, or at least provides an opportunity to use additional core words that are not in the book. [Read more…]
One surprising aspect of Joey’s communication growth over the last year has been to watch how his overall methods of communication increased along with his use of his Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) device. I often hear people fear that using an AAC device will mean that a child stops developing oral language, because he no longer has a need for it. I hear this from teachers and parents, and frankly, the first time anyone told me about an AAC device I asked the same thing. “If he can push a button and get what he wants, why on earth would he ever speak again?” “If he can talk, then why would we introduce him to a way of communicating that does not involve oral language?” [Read more…]
Joey’s eyes hovered over his device, scanning it for the words he wanted to use. He repeated some words over and over again, and each time I tried to follow up and understand what he was saying. I kept getting it wrong. I’d ask some sort of clarifying question, and he’d go back into his device to repeat the words again, putting them in a different order or adding a new word to the mix. Off. Brown. Down. Turn. Fast. Down. Black. Turn. Yet any comment I made about what he was trying to tell me was met with a head shake. Eventually, a few tears began to run down his face. Through the tears he went back into his talky, looking for new words to make himself clear. [Read more…]
When I pulled out paint during my session with Joey a few weeks ago, a smile spread across his face. Joey knew immediately what I had planned. He went into his talky and said PAINT. Joey loves to paint, which is good because painting gives us so many good opportunities to incorporate language and fine motor goals, while tying these goals together with whatever theme or book we are focused on at the moment. In fact, when we read Seals on the Bus , Joey specifically used his eye gaze “talky” to ask me to paint. The next time I came back I brought yellow paint and a picture of a bus. [Read more…]
