On top of everyone being sick, again, it's been a week to deal with communication around here.
Yesterday we got approval for Leaf to use a speaking valve, and she does really well with it. She was back on the vent full time 2 weeks ago with an illness, and the amount of babbling she did was striking compared to her normal near-silence with a trach nose (a known issue - the air escapes through the trach before it gets to her vocal cords). So we're thrilled that she tolerates it so well, and we hear more of her voice, which means we will be able to work more on speech.
Acorn, too, is in the communication loop this week. He's added quite a few spontaneous signs, along with sentences. And we started talking about vocabulary for his new communication device, which should arrive any day now.
In exploring a device set up the way his will be set up, I was amused to find, on the places page, that "church" was near the top (and the top is supposed to be where we put things that children use most frequently). Clearly that one can get deleted for now, leaving space for other things.
I was also amused at the extensive list of holidays. Groundhog Day was there - I'm guessing it's a pretty typical list of holidays that school kids talk about, but still...Christmas, Easter, and Hanukkah, but no holidays for other faiths, which around here is kind of surprising, given the large variety of cultures in our school. I'm guessing it's just a standard load from the manufacturer, but you'd think our county expert would have that well in hand. So we'll have to consider how we add our own holidays in - changes to the device, by mutual agreement, will be made once a week with both school and family input, so adding them will require a discussion with his teacher and his SLP at school, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
It would be so much easier if he talked.....
Yesterday we got approval for Leaf to use a speaking valve, and she does really well with it. She was back on the vent full time 2 weeks ago with an illness, and the amount of babbling she did was striking compared to her normal near-silence with a trach nose (a known issue - the air escapes through the trach before it gets to her vocal cords). So we're thrilled that she tolerates it so well, and we hear more of her voice, which means we will be able to work more on speech.
Acorn, too, is in the communication loop this week. He's added quite a few spontaneous signs, along with sentences. And we started talking about vocabulary for his new communication device, which should arrive any day now.
In exploring a device set up the way his will be set up, I was amused to find, on the places page, that "church" was near the top (and the top is supposed to be where we put things that children use most frequently). Clearly that one can get deleted for now, leaving space for other things.
I was also amused at the extensive list of holidays. Groundhog Day was there - I'm guessing it's a pretty typical list of holidays that school kids talk about, but still...Christmas, Easter, and Hanukkah, but no holidays for other faiths, which around here is kind of surprising, given the large variety of cultures in our school. I'm guessing it's just a standard load from the manufacturer, but you'd think our county expert would have that well in hand. So we'll have to consider how we add our own holidays in - changes to the device, by mutual agreement, will be made once a week with both school and family input, so adding them will require a discussion with his teacher and his SLP at school, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
It would be so much easier if he talked.....
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