Speech

I wanted to share some of the things that Amelia is doing in therapy. I will attempt highlight each of the three main therapies Amelia participates in (speech, physical therapy and occupational therapy). Let's start with SPEECH:

In speech, Amelia's therapist Carrie has been working diligently for the last year+ to develop a communication strategy. We all know that there is a lot going on in Amelia's head, the problem is accessing it. Things are limited because she has minimal movement in her body and she vocalizes very little. We started with using switches to play and learn cause and effect in St. Louis. We have tried different locations (hands and head) for Amelia to access the switches and have found that she is accurate with both! It is sort of an art though, due to her limited movement the switches have to be placed "just so" in order for her to be able to push them. We are working on ways to make it easier for anybody to set up the switches for her (this will be really important when she starts pre-school).


In this video Amelia is using the switch to activate the music box. The DynaVox sits in front of her (upper left of screen). The switch near her head (her left side) is what she uses to make choices with the DynaVox.

It is amazing how God has worked to bring the right people into our lives...Carrie shared with me last week that many Speech Therapists (SLP) don't get education in assistive technology (AT) in school like she did. She was fortunate to have a professor who is a leader in the field in AT. Other therapists have to get continuing education when they are out of school or just never learn about it. Carrie has worked very hard to give us the ability to hear Amelia's voice and her experience in AT has been invaluable. Several months ago Carrie started introducing Amelia to a DynaVox and Amelia has caught on and is showing a lot of progress with it. For now we only practice with the DynaVox at therapy (which we goto 2 times a week). However, we finally got all the paperwork in and are waiting for approval from insurance. The DynaVox is a touch screen computer that Amelia accesses with a switch. We started with one page that contained several options of toys that Amelia enjoys. On the screen is pictures of severla toys. One by one each is magnified and at the same time the computer says the name of the toy. Even though Amelia looks at the screen we think she mainly uses the auditory part to decide which toy she wants. When the toy that she wants to paly with comes up she hits her switch and the computer says "I want to play with the...." and we play with it. Amelia has graduated to two pages now, one with toys and one with several other messages like "Amelia" that says "HI, my name is Amelia" when she picks it. Another has my voice and Steves voice recorded so she can pick to hear us say hello. There is also an "all done" which she picks frequently when she is tired. We are very excited at the opportunity that this amazing device gives us all. In in we can scan pictures, have classmates record messages and so much more.

While we are waiting for our own DynaVox we are using a step-by-step at home. We use it to allow Amelia to say "hello" to visitors and to tell us "I love you". The latest thing we have started doing is putting it by her head when she is in bed so she can tell us if she needs us at nap time or in the middle of the night. She has caught on quickly and it is a HUGE relief to us knowing that Amelia can communicate with us when she needs to.

Amelia playing with her "Blues Clues" toy (right hand) and making choices with the DynaVox using the red switch at her head. You can hear the DynaVox's computerish voice talking. When we have our own we can have different more natural voices recorded and upload our own pictures.

Another aspect of Amelia's speech is how she talks with her eyes. One way she does it is we ask Amelia questions and when the answer is yes she looks at us and when it is no she looks away, she even says "i don't know" by looking in the middle. She also looks at two objects and makes choices. She picks out her clothing in this way. Amelia's physical therapist Chrissy can get her to answer probably 90% of the time. We get her to answer 50-60% of the time. As we get more consistent with asking and listening (which is a key component) she is trusting us more and answering more. She does show her stubborn three year old self frequently by protesting and not communicating or participating.

I hope this post helps to explain some of Amelia's progress. If you have any questions as always either post a comment or e-mail me a question. It is a lot of information and is difficult to explain in words so I am not sure I did a very thorough job.

Hope you are all well and enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday. I know we did.

Jen

Three Years Old

Monday was Amelia's third birthday. I have said it before but birthdays are a bitter-sweet thing for us. We are so amazed and in love with Amelia. She has been through and accomplished so much in her short life, she is my hero. Yet, is difficult not to think of what we lost in June 2007, all those hopes and dreams for our first born. We still have hope and we still dream, things are just different now...not the typical.

We celebrated with several smallish parties...Thursday in Valentine with my famliy. Friday in Ord with my family (yes, I have a lot of family). Sunday at church with our church family. Monday with a sweet friend, her grandparents and two amazing therapists at Madonna during therapy. Miles and I sang "Happy Birthday" about a million times and Amelia got lots of e-mails and phone calls too. Thanks to you all.

Party time in Valentine

Party time in Ord