So what’s new with you?

Feb. 20, 2011

Sometimes I over-think about what to post on any given week. I usually try to come up with something profound, unique, or an item with insight as not to bore those loyal followers, and not be a waste of time. As Sunday rolls around, the early parts of the week are often a blur. Good things shouldn't be overlooked solely on when they happen.

Two weeks ago Nathan's world started to get a little bit bigger. While home with the little guy and two men fixing the freezer (for the second time) the doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting anyone other than the repair guys, and if they needed to call for back-up they, didn’t give me any warning. Nathan got excited as he always does when the doorbell rings, and I had to calm him down and convince him it’s probably not someone worth getting all excited about.

To a degree I was wrong. It was just our usual FexEd guy at the door, but what he was dropping off was worth writing home (or on a blog about). Nathan’s communications device had finally arrived. I use the word finally, as we’ve been using one in speech since March of 2010 (see Can you hear me now) and put in our order back before the school year started.

For anyone who’s had to order special need equipment, especially though insurance, obtaining letters of medical necessity, seeking out approved vendors, getting all of the I’s dotted and T’s crossed the long wait is typical. For Annette, there was extra hoops, having to deal with her insurance, the county support board, even getting a letter from the local school district on how it would be used at home, not just at school bypassing their need to provide funds for it.

Up to now, we had borrowed a couple of similar devices from any resource Annette could locate (and she did try many different resources.) The facilities that let us “demo” a model would allow us to have it for 2-3 weeks, and then return it. The different facilities frequently had similar, but different models rendering some pages inoperable for different periods of time. We even had Nathan’s speech therapist from school borrow a machine in her name to buy us a few more weeks to try to keep the momentum moving forward. Needless to say, having our own machine, not living off a thumb drive, wondering if icons would or wouldn’t show up has been one less element of stress in our lives. Now, the big challenge, finding new ways to use it, ways that Nathan would interested in and ways to allow him to develop his own voice.

The make and model of the device is an ECO2 made by the Prentke Romich Company (PRC). It runs off of Windows XP and does have some features allowing the user to access and run applications like a normal computer. (Well, we’ve seen it done, but when I tried to access it the other day, it said I have to talk to a PRC rep to complete whatever task it was I was trying to do.)

There are many choices/options that can be adjusted to the individual user. With Nathan’s fine motor inaccuracies, we decided to put a slight delay on selection so that he would have a little time to be accurate and make the choice he really wanted, not just where he touched first. It’s also a device that can grow with him. Right now he’s using pages with a maximum number of 15 buttons on a given page. It is easy to hide keys we don’t want him to select at a given time and to cut down on mental overload trying to decipher among all the options.

We’ve been using the device at school allowing Nathan to sign-in with letters on the device opposed to with markers that most of his classmates are using. After he signs in, we get to use what I think is one of the neater features, it loads a page that has a picture of the classroom filling the whole screen. Nathan can then point to a spot on the photo where puzzles, toys, books, etc. are telling the teacher where he wants to start his day. I’ve created a similar page with a photo in our house with his favorite places and he can choose to sit in the beanbag chair, sit in his activity chair or play on the floor. His accuracy is still a work-in-progress, but at least now we have something for him to make progress.

Annette and I have "basic training" on the device this Friday and we look forward to learning new ways to open new doors for him and allow him to express what’s been bottled up for so long. With the new device, and the weather finally looking like we may be about to go outside, we may soon be out of sleep mode and back to our favorite (most productive) part of the year.

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