Our First Steps to Writing

I started with a whiteboard.  Adrian didn’t have a lot of hand strength and quickly gave up on writing with a pencil or crayon because it took too much pressure to make it write.  He enjoyed markers because they wrote with even the lightest touch.  A whiteboard let us erase errors easily and made the whole thing portable.

I had planned to use our collection of wooden, magnetic letters to be an example he could follow in forming the letters.  Instead we stumbled upon a highly motivating activity!  Adrian LOVED to write the letter and then place the magnetic letter on top.  A matching game of sorts.

I could form a word with the magnetic letters and he would eagerly write each letter and place the magnetic on top.  He aimed to make his letters about the same size so the magnet would match.

With this set up Adrian wrote words all the time.  He wrote ‘chase’ over and over again to play his favorite game.  He wrote ‘dance’ so he could have his turn dancing with mom in the kitchen. He wrote ‘cookie’ so he could eat his favorite treat.  In this way we increased the words Adrian could sight read and worked on his handwriting skills at the same time.  And best of all, he enjoyed it! :) 

 

Where I’ve been

I haven’t been here cause I’ve been busy being HERE  

Cabin Fever

The end of last week we had some illness run through the house and Adrian missed school Thursday and Friday.   This week is vacation week.  I’m thrilled to skip the daily driving.  Adrian is less than thrilled.

It’s only Monday and he’s already begging to go out - anywhere.  It’s gonna be a long week!

Nifty News

A while back I programmed a button on Adrian’s home page to express something that had happened at home I thought Adrian might want to tell his teachers.   It worked so well that it’s turned into a permanent  ’News’ button. 

The school uses it to allow Adrian to pass along information about things he did at school.  He was able to tell us when he went roller skating, when they colored eggs and about his favorite part of a book they read.

Here at home we programmed it so Adrian could tell folks at school about walking on the treadmill, talk about his loose tooth and say what he did over the weekend.

Much of what we’ve programmed the button to express have been things that would have been difficult for Adrian to talk about otherwise.  This button makes it easy for us to add thoughts that aren’t part of his usual vocabulary. He seems to appreciate the ability to share these various news bits with everyone.

 

Keeping the juice flowing….

Now that we’ve got our Dynavox V back from being serviced, we’ve been figuring out the best way to keep it powered throughout the day. 

The first change we made was a rather simple one.  We turned off the option to have the screen blackout after a few minutes of not being used.  This drove Adrian nuts and he would compulsively touch the screen just to have it come back up - so not a real power saver after all. 

Instead we’ve been using the ambient light sensor.  The program stays up all the time, which makes Adrian very happy and the device saves some juice by automatically adjusting the brightness of the screen to match the light in the room. 

At school we’ve found that the external battery is the best solution for giving the device that extra boost to get through the day.  The external battery itself is thin, lightweight and very easy to use.  You plug the device into it just as if it were the power cord itself….. only it’s still portable!  Adrian’s not tied to the walls, there’s no power cords to trip anyone up and if he needs to get up and go, he can.  The team at school is very happy with it.

And, finally, my insurance policy - the car charger.  Even with the external battery working so well for us, I’ve still pulled our car charger out a few times.   I’m getting so much better about remembering to bring the Dynavox V with us when we go out but on occasion I still forget to check the power or pack up the external battery.  I can’t tell you what a thrill it is when this silly little charger saves me from myself.  With as much time as we spend in the car, having this insurance policy right there next to my seat is simply priceless.

Power failures used to be a regular occurrence for us, but no more.  These accessories keep the juice flowing… and Adrian talking

Can’t Weight to Get on the Treadmill!

Adrian’s weight has become more and more of a problem over the past year.  His 11 year old male appetite is huge. But most of the foods he eats are limited to foods high in fats and carbohydrates which easily packs on the pounds. 

We’d been considering ways to cut back and had already made some changes. We swapped out the sugar drinks for sugar-free, switched from white to whole grains and tried to limit the treats.  But even with these measures, his weight was still climbing faster than we wanted. 

He gets quite a bit of activity in a day walking on the treadmill, riding the bike and doing heavy work throughout his school day.  At home he’s rarely ever sitting down.  His energy seems almost endless.  But knowing it’s going to be difficult to make further changes in his diet we decided we’d try to increase his daily activity level here at home. 

He got on the treadmill Monday afternoon right after school.  We’ve got two treadmills so I did my workout on the other.  After 30 minutes I was done for the day.  Adrian was not.  He stayed on that treadmill for an hour.  An hour!  Non-stop!  And not just walking either.  He played with all the speed levels. Pumping it all the way up to 10 and running till it slowed back down.  When the hour was up I had to force him to quit.  

It’s a relief to know he enjoys this and it won’t be a struggle to get him on that treadmill a few times a week.  Along with a few other minor diet changes, we should be well on our way to getting his weight back under control.

Feeling Very Happy

Feelings were one of the first things we put in Adrian’s original PECS book.  He only ever used it when he was prompted to do so. 

We added it to his first device and now it’s on our Dynavox V as well.  For a long time he’d only use this if he was prompted.  But more recently I’ve seen him initiating conversations by telling us how he feels.  He used it at school one day to tell the staff he was feeling ‘a little sad’.  Then earlier this week we arrived at school and he immediately told me he was feeling ‘very happy’.  

For me it’s huge that he sees value in expressing to us how he’s feeling… and that he’s got the means to say it too!

Dentist Day

So today was our re-scheduled dentist appointment after last attempt’s disaster.

With a fully charged Dynovox V, everything proceeded according to plan.  As expected, Adrian was a bit confused about where we were going.  I was able to show him the dentist office visual scene showing the chair and equipment we’d see.  When he started to throw a little fit, I was able to get him to talk to me about what he wanted after we finished at the dentist.  He calmed right down.

We walked into the dentist office on the same page.  First we’d do the dentist thing and then we’d get some french fries.  It was a good deal for both of us.  Adrian was happy and compliant.  They got some x-rays, checked his teeth and managed to do a mini cleaning and fluoride treatment.  While we waited he used his Dynavox to talk to me about where he wanted to go next. 

It was a great visit and I’m sure next time will be even better.  We know he doesn’t care for certain flavors now so next time we’ll try some others till we find the right one.  Knowing the routine should make the directions easier to understand and follow.

After our visit we went to the grocery store to get french fries, as promised.  We put Adrian’s Dynavox in the front of the shopping cart and he pushed it through the store himself.  Besides french fries he asked for some fruit punch, cereal, cupcakes, fruit snacks, chicken nuggets, ice pops and candy.  We got some things and left others behind.  He was an angel throughout.

Back in Business!

I’ve got to hand it to DynaVox.  Less than two weeks after we sent out our DynaVox V for repairs, it’s back! 

Adrian laughed when he saw it come out of the box.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

I failed to back up my files often enough so there’s a few pages I’ll have to redo but for the most part everything is as it should be.  The timing is perfect.  This week’s school break should give me a bit of time to fix it up before we send it back to school.

I’m grateful to DynaVox for putting us back in business so quickly!

Word Up

One of the more frustrating drawbacks of Adrian being non-verbal is that it’s very difficult to determine if he can read.  He’s surprised us many time in the past by navigating through electronics (computer files, cable menus, etc.) seemingly by reading key words as he went.  But there’s really no way to know for certain if it was because the words were meaningful or if he was able to pick up on other clues to get the job done.

Adrian’s interest in books as always been with the pictures.  Occasionally he’ll point to a title on the cover, written in the font from the movie the book is based on.  I always assumed he recognized them as a picture or graphic, not as actual words. 

Tonight Adrian was looking through Disney book, an encyclopedia of sorts.  He brought it to me to show me.  Rather than point out the pictures or characters as he so often does, he pointed to words.  “The Little Mermaid” written in small print, regular font. 

For those of you who just missed that.  He pointed to words!

Yes, the words were special enough, meaningful enough, important enough to warrant drawing attention to them.  He read the words, recognized their value and shared them with me.  This is big.