One Voice at a Time
October 24, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
My son Charlie has a severe speech delay and, we think, he would not have been able to talk at all had he not received intensive speech therapy and ABA therapy (including verbal behavior therapy) from the time he was two years old. The use of an augmentative communication device such as a DynaVox has been mentioned more than once for Charlie; while it is not something that he seems to need now, we do not hesitate to consider anything that might help Charlie to communicate and express himself better in the future.
I have been interested to learn about Voice for Living, which provides information about augmentative and alternative communications (AAC). Voice for Living’s primary sponsor is DynaVox Technologies, which is holding some information sessions in the upcoming months (December 2nd in Pittsburgh, for instance).
Vox—as I just noted to my Classical Civilization class this morning —-is the Latin for “voice.” And any means that can help Charlie find and learn to use his voice is a most worthwhile endeavor—one voice at a time, one word at a time.
Huh, I would’ve thought you folks might have already looked into augmentative communication options for Charlie. Even though he’s learning speech to some extent, having another “channel” through which to communicate might help immensely in terms of reducing potential frustration. I know that I’ve been much better overall since I started making greater use of notebooks/typing.
Sometimes I even type at my boyfriend (usually using this when we’re sitting in the same room; I’ve found that when I’m somewhat overloaded, non-speech communication is much more effective and easier to execute.
We have—-the consensus right now seems to be that he does not need a device. Yet.
Charlie is still learning to read but I see typing in his future.