Never giving up on communication

We were delighted to hear how the patience and dedication of staff, and using ICE resources have significantly helped one young man to communicate.

This is the inspirational story;

"Student X is a young man in his twenties with very severe communication difficulties.  He appears to understand everything and follows instruction well; however, his expressive communication skills are almost non-existent.  He attends the college just one day a week. Over the past year or so, I've tried teaching him to communicate using sign language, picture and widget symbols, and photographs etc., none of which were particularly effective with him. 

I then introduced him to an object of reference bag with three balls in it; red to indicate 'no', green to indicate 'yes' and yellow to indicate 'I do not understand'.  Again, he was unable to use them effectively. 

A couple of months ago, I borrowed the 'Go Talk' message talker from the ICE resource library.  I set it up for him with just six basic, but relevant messages for him to communicate and for the first time, he responded to it.  He spent the rest of the day, enthusiastically trying out all the buttons, which he was able to do effectively, albeit, in his eagerness to use it, he wiped out the messages several times, so staff had to keep rerecording it for him. 

Exactly one week later, he indicated himself that he wanted to use the electronic message talker again, and again, he used it both enthusiastically and effectively.  A week later and several members of staff came running out of the room to tell me, you must come and see what Student X is doing.  Not only was he independently using the device to tell staff that he wanted a cup of coffee with one sugar, but he was attempting to vocalise the words that he had heard on the talker and had also pulled out a picture swatch with a picture of a pizza on it, and was indicating that he wanted that also. 

This was the breakthrough that we had been looking for, and it has been highly rewarding for us all to witness."

The GoTalk Pocket and many other communication aids are available for loan through your local library.

Click on the image to see the range of resources we have for loan.

 

 

 

Click here to be taken through to the library catalogue and search for inclusive communication titles and items.

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