Wow, has it really been a month? We finished up preschool for Liam with a meeting. We met, for the second time, with an AT team from Raleigh. They brought something called a PODD for us to work on communication with Liam. They said they have seen kids that they thought would never be able to use the system end up being able to use it. And they felt right off the bat that Liam would be able to do it. He was definitely interested in it when we worked with him at the meeting. They were prepping staff for using it with him for this next school year when I asked if I could take it home with me over the summer and work with him myself. They thought that was a great idea so I ended up leaving with the entire book.
The system is essentially pictures on each page that can lead you to other pages with more pictures in order to put together thoughts and sentences through pictures. It will force Liam to use his eyes for communication but since his awful eyesight is his strong skill, we are hoping it will help him to be able to visually scan and get his point across. The book consists of a 3 ring binder and 70 laminated pages full of pictures. It also came with a bracelet that he is supposed to wear at all times. The idea is to teach him to raise his hand when he has something to say but he always raises his arms so we are going to have to come up with something different
for that.
All in all, it's a great idea. It is what we have been doing for years anyway, talking through pictures and having him make choices. Liam is just such a complex kid that the idea of anything working perfectly is a long shot. But that's also my negativity talking. He has blown us away so many times this might just be one of those instances.
