Franklin’s mom shares the first three years of her sweet son’s life:
“My kind affectionate son had an interesting first two years of life. Just a few months old, he was diagnosed with Cutaneous Mastocytosis a rare skin disease with clusters of allergy cells on the surface of his skin. He has approximately 20 clusters. Around 6 months of age we began to introduce foods starting with baby cereal, and he threw up until it was blood. He was then diagnosed with FPIES and had to be on a grain free diet. By 16 months he was receiving MO First Steps speech therapy, occupational therapy, and feeding therapy. At 26 months old, MO First Steps began providing ABA therapy. Franklin finally began to make progress in therapy and our incredible ABA provider recommended Ability KC for an ACC device fitting. My son understands direction and attempts to communicate through nonverbal cues, screeching, minimal sign language, and has less then 10 unprompted words. A communication device with the program touch chat would be giving a voice to my son. This would empower him to ask for what he wants, to consent to activities, to tell us what hurts when he is in pain, and to simply tell us what’s on his mind. In November, my son turns three and will start special education preschool and a device now would assist in his learning at school.”
It’s hard to imagine all that Franklin’s family has gone through in just three years, and what incredible gains! Variety KC donors know just how important the proper tools are in helping kids to keep moving forward and Franklin is getting his device and apps. There are so many young kids who would benefit from their own communication device, you can help Variety KC give them a voice – donate today at varietykc.org/donate. Thank you!
