Everything under the sun

J.P., Paige and I have had a busy year, and things don’t seem to be calming down.

But several people have asked how things are going and whether I’ve stopped blogging.

There are still plenty of stories to tell, and I’m hoping to break through the serious case of writer’s block that seems to have taken hold.

J.P. has a new NovaChat device that has made it much easier for him to communicate during his therapy sessions. He’s becoming much quicker with his switch and has learned the various pages to find what he’s trying to say. He’s also able to go back to his main page and navigate to other places.

During occupational therapy this week, we began the session simply asking J.P. to tell us what he wanted to do. He navigated to his school page, and then chose math and numbers.

I asked him what he wanted to do with numbers, and he went to his school page, then to science and sun.

I said, “Do you want to draw a picture of the sun?” I went to his phrases page, and he said, “Yes.”

His therapist and I allowed him to use the device to choose the colors for his picture. He chose yellow, red, orange and pink. His picture was great.

At the end, to incorporate the math he wanted, we asked him, “How many circles were in the picture?” He said, “One.” We then asked, “How many rectangles?” He said, “10.”

His therapist remarked that his teacher must have been talking to him about the sun, so I later asked the teacher, and she told me they were just talking about the sun and plants.

It makes me realize again how much more J.P. probably knows then even I give him credit for. I was talking to Paige about how we can incorporate this device into his daily life.

I’m so excited that he’s becoming better able to use the device and communicate. Hopefully, we’ll soon have pages with phrases like:

• “Please turn the TV channel.”
• “I’m uncomfortable.”
• “I want to play.”
• “I don’t feel good.”
• “My head hurts.”
• “My tummy hurts.”
• “I want my dog.”

The possibilities are endless, but so important and really exciting.

Think about it: J.P.’s ability to communicate just broke my case of writer’s block. Cool.