Walt Disney World the AAC way

We are just back from a magical trip to Walt Disney world

I did a lot of prep before & created WDW pages each park had its own folder with attractions & shows having pop ups. 

The parks are massive sensory overload but I found that I could model a lot and having things visually helped regulate. 

I didn't insist on full sentences when choosing activities and he did use it to make choices including telling us he needs to leave one day. 

You can see from the posted pictures we has a packed few days. The daily schedule was updated as we went around the parks. 

I'm back......

Help everyone bouncy pony here!! It's been so long since I last blogged apologies for that but things have been very tough and communication was put to a halt and I am now getting back to it and feeling more confident again slowly!

Today I have had a brilliant day at a castle and park and my carer made sure we had a relaxing day with communication involved of course! What better than to get my favourite a Diet Coke from the cafe! And while I was there why not order for my carer too?! Why not indeed so that is exactly what I did..... 

And here u can see me and my carer enjoying our stuff I ASKED FOR! Woo hoo go me! Feeling proud of myself and back on form that if u want something u got to ask a tough but fair lesson my carer has taught me! 

That's all for now but don't u worry I'm back and I'm on it communication is coming in thick and fast!

Bouncy pony! 

The summer holidays, surely a great time to practice our social communication

Been a bit quiet here recently...sorry!!

We have 2 small but significant stories to tell.....

Yesterday we met up with bouncy pony, who asked Ellie some simple yes/no questions using her device....although Ellie needed encouragement she managed to do this...

Today we went out for a drink in our favourite tea rooms, Ellie asked the waitress for a 'little cup' using her device. 

Doesn't sound much does it? 

Believe me, it's huge :) 

Smoothie making the autism way!

Last week I tried making a smoothie at a centre I go to it wasn't without its challenges due to my sensory processing disorder I find loud noises really hard to tolerate and even with my ear defenders on the noise of the machine can be too much!! I did as much as I could to prepare for it

I made a smoothie page with choices of fruit on and also included fruit I don't like so I could say what I didn't want which is something I'm trying to work on instead of making my no noises im trying to verbally tell my carers what I don't want 

This is what I chose in my smoothie oh and kiwi but I pointed to that

Talking whilst making it to add more ingredients to my list! I wanted pineapple too! 

This is me making my smoothie easiest way I found around making it was to press the button in very small burst of noise but it wasn't mixing properly so my carer took over and pressed it continued for a few seconds what seemed hours to me and I hit her because I couldn't tolerate the noise but I really did want to do it! So it was one of them moment she had to take the chance of me hitting out but I wanted to make a smoothie and this was the only way!

It tasted lovely in the end wasn't without challenges I had HUGE sensory overload from it and really got upset but lesson learnt next time I'll go out the room when others are making them so to minimise the amount of time I have to hear it!!

Home-School Story Sharing with P2Go

I love the idea of school and home sharing pictures and stories of what the child has been doing via P2Go.  It makes communication so real and meaningful.  I suspect that a lot of children with autism and/or learning disabilities would rather read stories about themselves: they can connect the pictures to concrete events, people and places they remember.  It's also great for inclusion: my son is in a school where there are also children without disabilities, and they have no way to know that he's actually a little boy who does interesting things at the weekend and during holidays unless he has a way to tell them!

So I was really pleased when his teacher suggested a 'news'-type folder for him to share in this way.  Yesterday I made a 'weekend' folder for him to share news.  I created a huge 1x2 grid so it looks a bit like an open storybook with two pages.  I then wrote some very simple sentences about what he did that weekend and added photos.  It was well received and school enjoyed helping him to share it - I can see from his user history that he did!  As I replace it each week I'm going to keep a kind of 'archive' of old stories too because I'm sure he will enjoy revisiting them.

His school are keen to try and make this a two-way process by sending home a little story of his week at school for me to read at the weekend with him - we're going to meet to plan this soon.  Fingers crossed ....

Keeping the set up appropriate for the environment. One size doesn't fit all.....

Bluebell has selective mutism as well as autism. The selective mutism causes extreme anxiety, it's not through choice, it's huge and stops her doing so much. After our slt appointment, the slt said bluebell could use the advanced core set up. Yes, no problem.......at home........but take her out of our environment and she NEEDS basic, complete basic. We have decided to work on asking for a hot chocolate in our regular tea rooms every week. (Poor me eh!!) I'm pleased to say she did it.....we've been twice now, and today she was far less anxious than last time. 

As you can see this set up is extremely easy. It needs to be to help with Bluebells anxiety. Bluebell didn't want to press the 'speak' box, but that's fine, she turned the iPhone around so staff could read the sentence.