Assistive Technology

This morning we had an Assistive Technology consult appointment at Children's Hospital to evaluate all of the communication devices that are available to try and find a device that will work best for Alex to communicate her needs and wants.  We were at the appointment for over three hours and I have to say I was so impressed with how patient she was and how great she tolerated everything.

We tried the eye gaze system again, but once again she didn't hold her gaze at the pictures long enough for the computer to understand what she was looking at...

 

They tried using it with a switch, but I have to say, I even had a hard time with that.   You had to select which row you wanted to be on, wait until the machine knew that's where you wanted to be, then you had to hit the switch to get to the correct picture you wanted to be on, then you had to wait so the machine knew that was the picture you were picking.  It was a pretty complicated series of hits and pauses - so that didn't work so well...

We tried the I-Pad and another device called the Dynavox.   Overall, Alex was most interested in all of the new people in the room - she kept trying to grab their hands and smile at them...little love bug :)

Alex and Tabitha

The last thing we tried was a touch screen monitor.  Overall she had the best success with that.  She had to choose between two pictures - it would be a picture of a dog and a car and it would say which one is the dog?  She had to touch the dog to move on to the next series of pictures.  She looked at the correct picture with her eyes, but wasn't really grasping the touch the monitor concept.  Then, because she was so interested in everyone in the room, they put a program on with lots of faces...TEEN BOY faces, and boy did she like that!  Her eyes never left the monitor...little flirt!

So the plan for right now is to order her a touch screen monitor to connect to our computer here at home.  We really need to work, every day, on teaching her the cause and effect of what the monitor can do.  Once we gain ground with that and she understands the basic concept, they really feel a lot more communication doors will open up for her.  Her speech therapist is great, and the techniques are great, but utilizing systems for an hour once a week clearly isn't cutting it for Alex.  As she's shown us with so many facets of her every day, it has to be repetition, repetition, repetition for her to grasp concepts.  We left the appointment with a lot of great apps and software options to start using at home every single day - using her switches for now to activate the programs and eventually we will work towards her using the touch screen.  Again, once she grasps the concept, the eye gaze system or other communication devices could really open up the communication door we're so longing for with her.

Once we left the appointment we were all starving, so we drove to Wendy's and for the very first time, EVER, I bought Alex a kids meal!!!  The little things around here are really the most exciting!  I got her chicken nuggets and french fries and when we got home we blended up the nuggets (with the sweet and sour dipping sauce for her nuggets) and she LOVED it :)  She also got to drink some fruit punch...through a REAL straw!! 

Normally she uses a specialized straw - but a few times this week she's used a real, conventional straw.  Pretty exciting stuff!