My son is loving his communication device!  Wow, he loves hot chocolate!  Who knew?

My son has a Spring Board Lite augmentative device from Prentke Romake Company.  We call the device “His Talker.“ See the link to get a visual. http://www.prentrom.com/springboardlite

What is an augmentative device?  We’ll I am not a speech therapist, just a Mom so here is my definition:  It is a computer that helps verbally express an individual’s wants, needs, emotions, and places they may want to go based on the buttons they push or the words they spell.  It is like PECS http://www.pecs-usa.com/whatispecs.htm but it is electronic. 

Unlike a PECS book, my son’s talker holds hundreds of words, pictures, books and music choices. A PECS book could do this too but it would be huge and too large to carry.

My son once told a mom standing next to me that I was his mom.  He had never done this before getting his talker.  He said the following by pressing three buttons:  “My name is Eli”  “This is my family” “This is my mom”  What my son had done was found our family’s picture on his device and clicked on me in the picture.  The device is programmed to say “This is my mom” when my picture is pressed.  I started crying and the other parent did as well for she had never seen Eli communicate so clearly. 

Eli is learning at a faster rate at school as well and it really gives him the freedom to say anything at any time.  His favorite thing right now is “I want to drink some hot chocolate”  and he always clicks on “Marshmellows” next.  We have seen a decrease in behaviors and frustration.  So it has been awesome.  My son is low functioning too to help give you a reference.

Each manufacturers website will have info about funding to pay for the device. You will need to get a prescription and a full written report from a speech therapist with his or her recommendations for your loved one.  Then you will submit this to your health insurance and/or Medicaid.  Medicaid does pay for the devices and the repairs and maintenance during its life.  If you have no funding, speak to your county board of developmental disability and see if they funding for a durable medical good, this is the product purchasing term in insurances. You could use family resource dollars as well.  Also talk to your child’s school and see if they can pull down more funding for your child.

I will tell you that at age 9 or so, we went through a period of high behaviors with our son.  Now that I look back, most of it was frustration due to his inability to communicate his wants and needs.  I wish we would of had his talker in place by age 5 and maybe that two year period might have been easier on us all especially for Eli.

To learn more visit:  http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/AAC.htm