Just over two years ago Calvin was diagnosed with Autism and began his journey. As parents, the diagnosis was not a shock but it was something we needed in order to jump start any kind of help for Cal. When we began therapy three years ago through Infant Toddler Services, Calvin had just 6 words (Mama, Dad, Da (dog), wa (water), hi, and no). Once we began his long journey of therapy, Applied Behavioral Analysis, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy – we saw a dramatic improvement in Calvin’s ability to communicate with us both verbally and nonverbally. As parents, the most devastating part of the entire journey was knowing that we had an immensely bright and talented child but because he couldn’t communicate with the world around him – we felt like we had to constantly prove that he was capable. That journey changed when we had him evaluated through the school district for preschool.
Calvin was assigned to the Early Childhood Communication’s classroom and we were told he would most likely always be assigned to a communications class because of his delays. However, by the end of fall break in his first year at preschool, he had blossomed and had blown through every IEP goal they had for him. So then we reconvened, set harder goals, started 15 minute visits to the general education preschool class, got him outside Speech and OT, sent him to the Schiefelbusch-Sertoma Camp for speech over the summer and he floored us with all the knowledge he had in his brain. After two years of therapy and preschool we have learned that Calvin is a visual learner and has well over 300 words that he can label, he can spell up to 40 as of right now, however, he doesn’t have the ability yet to use language effectively beyond labeling.
Because of Calvin’s ability to visually learn things to communicate, we feel an iPad is the best tool for him. The program allows him to visually learn how words go together to form sentences and then it is reinforced by the actual speaking of the sentence to him. We’ve seen great improvement for him in being able to truly communicate his wants and needs but unfortunately, it’s really only at school. Our district has the technology for school but once he comes home or goes to his other therapy’s he has to solely rely on our ability to understand his short utterances or his ability to get something for himself. We feel that this device would drastically improve Cal’s ability to communicate with the world around him – family, friends, therapists. With a new baby brother, he is continually trying to find ways to engage the baby and sometimes gets frustrated that he doesn’t have the worlds to tell us how he’d like to play with the baby. This device would help him not only connect with us better but would also help him engage and build that crucial sibling bond that he is trying to make. It would change his life and aid him in accomplishing all the amazing things he doesn’t yet have words for.
Calvin is an extremely bright and funny child. He has a great sense of humor and can make you belly laugh with a simple phrase. His current joke is to sing “baby brother goes wah, wah, wah” to the tune of the Wheels on the Bus, whenever baby brother Nolan cries. He loves to spell and in the last few weeks has amazed us with his ability to spell dinosaur, Santa Where are you, alphabet, and Tyrannosaurus Rex. Most of these are song titles from kids songs and he learns to spell them by reading the text on our phones. This is one way he communicates with us and reinforces his visual learning style. Together we love to read, play at the park, visit Science City, and spend time as a family watching Frozen (Calvin’s favorite movie).
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