Technology Update

It seems like there isn't a long stretch in the year when we are bored.  Right now we have lots of school activities, communion parties, softball games, etc.  We are also working on Emma's kindergarten placement and it seems like we have an agreed upon placement for her in the Fall.  I'll tell more about that later once we update her IEP because I'm afraid announcing it on this little ole blog might jinx us.  Better safe than sorry in my book!  Especially when it comes to IEPs....sigh.

Emma has been making a lot of progress using Evie at home.  She has a new SLP at school who hasn't been trained on her device yet but she is working with it as best she can and Emma is starting to show her what she can do with it a bit more.  We had an IEP meeting today to increase her Speech session from 2x 30 min sessions/week to 2x 45 min sessions/week based on input from her prior and current SLP.  Emma just gets warmed up and in her groove at the 30 min. mark when it's time to end and they want more time with her.  So that was agreed and added to the IEP.  Also, we'll add training time for her current SLP to the IEP and hopefully she'll get it ASAP.  Lastly, we added in some wording that lesson plan words will be programmed into Evie prior to the start of the unit.  Right now I do all the programming but once her SLP is trained she will take over that responsibility.

I spent a lot of time on the PRC website (the training tab at the top of the screen is where I went) and AAC Language Lab lately taking the self paced study courses and I've learn a ton!  The resources they have posted are wonderful and if you are using a PRC device I recommend checking them out.  They have lesson plans for how to teach core words and ideas to incorporate the core words into your everyday life.  I printed out many of the lessons for the Stage 2 communicators and plan to use them at home with Emma.  I'm thinking I'll plan to dedicate 2 sessions/week at home working on the lesson plans over the summer.  That seems about right for us.  We also plan to add in outside school Speech sessions with her device over the summer with the AAC expert at our hospital.  My hope is to build on the momentum Emma has with Evie lately and have her start Kindergarten with a more functional use of the device.

Emma continues to love playing with her iPad and it really gets her to open her hands nicely.  We decided to purchase the iPad attachment for the mount (Mount'n Mover) she uses with her talker.  The iPad attachment can be used with both her table top holder and the wheelchair holder.  The iPad attachement is the new one with a bungee cord to keep the iPad secure.  We can also use it to hold a mirror (my girl LOVES to look at herself) or other items instead of the iPad.  It was an investment in the attachment but so far it's been hugely successful.  Here is a brief video of Emma playing the Peeping Musicians app that is put out by the people at Helpkidzlearn.  In case you aren't familiar with them, it's a website with many fun switch activated computer games Emma enjoys playing.