Ben’s Unique Form of Communication


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Ben’s speech therapy during the time we were in Charleston was pretty intense.  We were still holding out great hope that Ben would begin to communicate using words.  Starting out everything was geared toward unlocking that part of his brain.  As time went by it became clear that development of his receptive language and finding alternative ways to help him communicate would be much more productive.  It was obvious that Ben could understand almost everything that was said to him.  We just needed to find a way for him to respond.  We looked at several augmentative communication devices such as the Dynavox and the AlphaTalker.  These products had symbols which represented things that Ben may want to talk about, such as Mommy, Daddy, eat, drink, cars, etc.  When the button with the symbol was pressed, the corresponding word would play.  We hoped that this would not only help develop his speech, but in the event  that he did not begin to speak he would still be able to use the symbols to communicate.  After using the devices at the school, we came up with a much simpler (and less expensive) device which had Ben point to pictures when he wanted something.  This technique served Ben well in the future once he started school.  He became quite proficient at letting us know exactly what he needed , all by pointing to pictures.  As he grew his range of pictures grew.  The therapist also started working with Ben on sign language.  She began by teaching him some of the basic signs like eat, drink, more, finished, etc.  While his ability (more likely motivation) to
learn sign language was limited, he does have certain signs that he continues to use  today

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Speech delay has no doubt been Ben’s most frustrating limitation.  Though he is non-verbal he is quite good at letting us know of his needs or wants.  However, it can be a challenge to understand him; though his mixture of signs, pointing and a few words seem to work for him.  I would recommend to anyone faced with similar circumstances to try more than one communication alternative before deciding on a particular product.  In Ben’s case, he had the opportunity to work with several different devices and ended up
gravitating toward the less complicated.

 

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