Darwin is three years old, loves dinosaurs and is nonverbal. He and his family have worked with Rachel, Speech-language pathologist (SLP) who said Darwin has acquired 4 verbal words so far, even given consistent speech therapy, and clearly wants to communicate so much more. We hoped that a device would give him a way to communicate while he is still working so hard to acquire verbal speech and make it so that he could communicate regardless of how much speech he develops!
Skeptical of the device at first, his mom had seen incredible improvements with his communication and speech. “Before the device Darwin has never been able to clearly ask for things he wants, he was only able to point, guide you towards something, or cry. Since having the device, he can talk about his favorite things (dinosaurs!).”
After a week with a trial device Darwin was verbally imitating lots of the words, something he did not do when he heard people speak. Two weeks into having a trial device he was also verbally imitating people more often. “Darwin pressed the “I love you” phrase button and verbally repeated the words. Rachel or I did not know he could say 3 consecutive verbal words. It was also the first time I heard him say I love you.”
Rachel, his SLP shared this story, “Every week we work on new words and it’s so fun for me to see what he wants to talk about each week! Mom told me a story last week about how he saw a spider and wanted to communicate but his grandma wasn’t understanding. He left the room, found his device, brought it to grandma, and said “spider” and pointed to where he’d seen the spider. While mom was telling me this story, Darwin was clearly listening and used the device to say “spider” to me, to illustrate what had happened.”
Numotion Speech Solutions is the go-to AAC provider for this speech therapist. “It’s been the simplest AAC evaluation process I’ve had so far as a home health SLP, since Colleen, Numotion Augmentative and Alternative Communications Specialist, was able to come with me to visits to trial the devices, give me some training on any of the language software I didn’t know, and then leave the devices with me for a trial period. Numotion has been helpful by coordinating with the doctors, so I don’t have to do that, and the report I needed to write was straightforward.”