Electronic Devices Help Nonverbal Kids Find Voices Pam Adams - Mexico Ledger | |
go to original June 19, 2017 |
Selah isn’t ready to work yet.
Carrie Kerr asks, “Do you want a drink?“
Selah grabs a bright pink iPad programmed with more than 3,000 words and matching pictures, including a skunk for a fun kid word like “fart.” Pronouns in yellow-colored boxes, adjectives in blue, nouns in white, verbs in green with different shades for past tense and other conjugations.
Selah taps an icon for drink, taps another for water.
Symbols for drinking water appear on the screen and a girl’s version of Siri’s voice says “drink water.“
Selah Oelschlager is 6 years old and learning to talk.
“It’s hard for her to find the words verbally, but easy for her to find them here,” says Kerr, a speech pathologist, referring to the electronic device she calls Selah’s “talker.“
Once Selah finds the matching symbols and words on her talker, Kerr adds, “It’s easier for her to learn them verbally.“
The scene isn’t quite the breakthrough moment of Helen Keller’s discovery of the signed-language meaning of water from the movie, “The Miracle Worker.” It is a nonverbal autistic child stalling the start of a therapy session, the way young children find excuses to put off bedtime.
They are at Child’s Nature, Kerr’s new pediatric therapy center in Washington, Illinois. The scene may not be high drama, but it is a picture of the higher technology of alternative communication systems.
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