Our Current Communication Method

Of all of the methods we have tried with our daughter over the years (and we have tried a lot of things!), the ipad has been the most helpful so far for communicating with our daughter. I will be adding future posts with more specifics about other communication methods we use and have tried, and some of the different apps we currently use with her on her ipad. 

Just so you know where we are coming from, a little background on our current communication system...

The ipad we currently have is provided by the local public school district. Our daughter is allowed to have it at home and use it all throughout the day and evening, for everything (she is medically homebound right now and has a teacher from the school come in to give her lessons). We use the communication app “Proloquo2Go.” It is kind of like PECS pictures (PECS stands for “Picture Exchange Communication System) that talk for you when you touch them. 

I realize this might seem unheard of or "not an option" for some of you, but I will say again that my daughter goes to a public school. When teachers and administrators began to see what was happening with non verbal students using the ipad to communicate and learn, excitement began to build. The results were life changing. Doors were opened, and non verbal students were given this amazing opportunity. Typically parents feel that they would need to "fight" with the school district to provide this. But we did not fight at all. The ipad and the apps are that good. Instant success is evident. It is not impossible. It is also possible for some to receive a tablet device through a speech therapist, covered by insurance. These are all details I would love to write about in a future post.

We did love our PECS. It helped us finally have a way to begin to communicate with our daughter. PECS have their benefit, and I actually think they may be necessary to some extent to prepare certain children to use the Proloquo2Go app (as in our case). However after using PECS for many years, the ipad has made our lives much easier. We can use PECS as “back up” if the ipad is not available (charging, forgot it, someone got it wet and it is in a bag of rice– happened to us once…) but we focus almost completely on the ipad now for communication. Adding and changing “buttons” and “pages” takes seconds or minutes, compared to much more time as before with PECS.

If you have no communication system at all right now, there are many options to try. But for someone who has already been trying other methods and feeling frustrated, consider the ipad or another tablet device. Maybe you would like to try an ipad, but you are not sure about the cost of the ipad and apps. You might think that it is too expensive. If you are using PECS pictures right now with someone who is non verbal, think of all the time, energy, money, effort, and trips out to make these pictures. You might love your PECS system. It works for you. Your child understands it, uses it and things are just fine. Allow me to suggest that you take a closer look at the benefits of the ipad and different communication apps before deciding that it is just too expensive.

We were happy with PECS to a certain extent, but I struggled with every part of the process of making it happen: our bad quality color printer, finding the images we needed, not being able to afford Boardmaker and having to find other ways to get the symbols and images, making new PECS books and shopping for binders and plastic “pages,” constantly running out of ink, the trips to the office store to get them laminated, having friends and family help by cutting them all out, scouring the stores and internet for the best prices on large amounts of Velcro, and the worst: losing the PECS pictures or having them get wet or damaged after all that work. We have had PECS pictures fall in the toilet, get thrown behind furniture, get crumpled up or folded right after they were newly made, and get chewed on. They have been lost at school. Some teachers at school even used the PECS system incorrectly because they were not properly trained to use PECS. (More on that in another future post.)Tell me, is this hitting close to home with any readers?

If you take those factors into consideration, you might think it is worth it based on the trouble alone to find a way to get an ipad. We were blessed to have our school district offer to let our daughter borrow one. Even though it is not ours forever, we know that it would be well worth the effort to find a way to buy one if we should need to purchase our own in the future.

Based on our experience and knowing that others in our situation might also have limited budgets and might not be able to afford to purchase an ipad, I would encourage others to think outside the box a little. See if you can try one out – from an OT or speech therapist, a teacher at school, a friend who has one maybe. Ask family members to consider going in on a gift for the next big holiday or birthday and contribute towards an ipad. Create a special fund for the ipad savings and work toward that goal over time. It will be worth it if your loved one can use it as their “voice.”

Look for future posts about Proloquo2Go and other apps soon!