Coffee, cake and cars

Today I took my son out to Costa for cake (and sneakily, for some communication practice).  Our local Costa is perfect for this: it has a small enclosed outdoor seating area which you can't easily escape from with a railing which overlooks a busy road.  This means in addition to ordering coffee and cake we could use his vehicle folder to comment on what was passing by!

I was hoping to get him to ask for something at the counter but that proved too difficult (he was massively excited by all the cakes available), so I got him chocolate brownie and a drink (which I know he likes).  When we sat down I got him to ask for drink or cake.  He couldn't decide whether it was 'chocolate' or cake' which was a good teaching opportunity because we put the two together to make 'chocolate cake'.  I realised I hadn't added a 'yummy' and 'yucky' button to his food folder (his sister has those words in her food folder) and they would have been useful so I will fix that for next time!

Then we used his vehicles folder to comment on the vehicles going by.  We saw cars, vans, buses, motorbikes, taxis, and .... the highlight of the day .... an ambulance!   He showed an interest in me modelling and repeated some of the words but didn't do much pressing himself.  However if we go to that cafe and start doing this regularly I think there's a good chance he will.

Progress ....

Apologies for no posts in a while from me.  I have been busy fighting on various fronts, including getting my daughter a new EHCP (in the UK, a legal statement of special needs and the provision that is needed as a result of those needs) in order to get her speech-generating device written into her provision.  Slow progress, but I am getting there!  We now have a Speech & Language Therapist who is sympathetic to AAC and has written a report for the EHCP that she needs to have a regular structured programme to help her make progress on P2Go so that is good.

Another positive thing is that I have signed up for a course on modelling/ Aided Language Input for parents of children 2-11 who use AAC.  Looking forward to getting started.  Here is the advert in case anyone is interested.

Finally, I'm pleased (and surprised) to say that despite very poor modelling from me recently (been distracted due to the EHCP issue) my daughter has spontaneously used four brand new buttons on her device that she hasn't used before.  They are:

Book:  she visited her granny's house and remembered there was a book there that she really liked and wanted to see again so she said 'I want book' (she doesn't normally ask for books because they are freely available on her bookshelf at home).  Unfortunately she's not yet able to specify which book it was she wanted but we worked it out!

Finished: she finished her dinner and said 'finished yoghurt' (she likes a yoghurt after dinner). 'Finished' is a really good one because she has a tendency to pick up food and throw it when she's had enough so if she can start telling us this way that will be an improvement!

Please: she doesn't normally bother with 'please' or 'thank-you' but a few days ago she said 'I want chocolate'.  I said 'chocolate is finished' and she went back to her iPad and pressed 'please'.  I was so impressed she ended up getting some (as she knew she would!!) 

Night-night: her Daddy said 'it's time for bed' and she went to the iPad and pressed 'night-night'.  I was really pleased about this one because it wasn't requesting, it was just nice social communication.

So all this progress is motivating me to up my game with the modelling!  Fingers crossed the course above will kick-start me into action again.  :)

Using morning routine to model

My Lad has been home from college so I have modelled each morning

He is now responding to the prompts in the sentence bar fetching his own clothes and getting dressed and also asking about brush teeth himself. He is accepting a shave which is very difficult for him using his p2go 

I need to get college to continue with this. 

When your carer can't do something u can!

My carer is doing a challenge this month and can't eat meat so couldn't have bacon for breakfast like she wanted when we was at the hotel yesterday..... She has been busy using my device to model and encourage me to talk again...

It worked!

I was really interested in what Amy had to say and she was making me laugh because she was slow finding what she wanted to say! I took great pleasure in being able to tell her I had eaten bacon and it tasted good!! 

Might be only one thing I said but I said it unprompted and it's one more thing I said than the day before! 

Learning to speak AAC

If we expect our young person to use AAC we need to use it as well. My lad is starting to observe modelling more and we can almost have a conversation using his device.

We chatted about printing the other day and the need for more ink. 

Day one - learning to navigate through folders

The slt has given us a programme to follow, Bluebell is much more focused in the morning, so because it's half term here, we made a start today.

Well, A-maze-ing!!!!!!! She was a superstar, using her own intuition as to where words could be. 

Today's words to find were - first name, brother, dad, mum, family names, names of closest friends, bus, taxi, car, wheelchair, home, school, book, music, story, swing, dvd, I, sad, happy, bad, good, OK, please, thankyou, not, am, go, is, like, want......

I'm so proud of her, not only that, we went to costa today, she found all the words for 'I want hot chocolate please', then when the waitress asked her questions she found the words 'little', 'no' and 'yes'. She was anxious, yes, but she managed to do it, she was visibly pleased, and relieved, when she got her hot chocolate. 

Granny was so proud of her that she had a go on proloquo2go, and found the words ' I am very proud of you' for her very special granddaughter.

Having a voice in the most magical place in the world

We have had a magical trip this Christmas to Disneyland Paris. Preparation enabled choice and modelling.I could also quickly add things as needed.

 He was so pleased in Stitch Live that he could use his colours folder and "shout out" with the other children the colours to enable Stitch to escape.

Reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar with AAC

I have recently been inspired by conversations with co-blogger Twinkle Blueberry about modelling AAC whilst sharing books (and her recent blogpost on the subject) so I decided to give it a go.  My girl is much younger than hers and she likes very simple, repetitive books which are read in the same way, with the same rhythm, each time.  She is also quite impatient and likes things to happen quickly!  This means that (at this stage, anyway) I can't do long, complicated modelling that would involve navigating through different folders to find words - because she likes pages turned quickly!!

So this is how we did it ...

First of all we put on the YouTube video of Eric Carle reading his book 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'.  (She likes watching him better than listening to me!)

Then we opened our 'comments' folder (general comments, not designed for this activity):

Then I just put in any comments which were relevant as Eric turned the pages.  She was comfortable with that as it didn't change the rhythm or speed of the story too much.  Buttons which were useful were:

 'Oh dear!  Ouch!' (when the caterpillar had a stomach ache)

'Yummy!' (when the caterpillar ate nice things)

'That's clever!' (when the caterpillar built a cocoon)

'That's silly!' (when the caterpillar ate too much food).

 'Wow!  That's pretty!' (when the caterpillar turned into a butterfly), 

Reluctant communicator

Modelling is very important. When we go shopping we take it in turns to choose which shop we want to go in.

Every little helps