As I’m sure
with all communication devices, there are occasions when it is not always
possible or appropriate for E to use it. For
these situations, a low tech alternative that matches her communication style and skills
is required.
As I have
mentioned before, E is going into P6 after the holidays and so is able to read
and write with confidence. When using
her communication device, she now chooses to use the keyboard and predictive
text option rather than pre-programmed words. So without her device, we needed
something that would also let her do this and so E and I developed a way of
spelling out words using a combination of her signs and my predictive text. This works well for us but is quite inaccessible
if you do not know her well. To get
round this we are currently trialling a low tech replacement created for us by
the local communication team FACCT.
 |
| Letters and colours |
 |
| In use |
This is a two
sided grid with the same information on both sides.
E uses eye gaze to first select a colour box and then letter box. The
letter she wants is the colour just picked.
It is a fantastic quick replacement which makes communication possible
when the device is not around.
When E was
younger this spelling based option was not appropriate. To ensure she could communication without her
device ,she had a communication passport
This gave some key information about
her, explained how she communicated and contained both pictures of her signs
with their meaning together with some paper copies of key grids from her
communication device. Again this was
developed in conjunction with FACCT. To use this, I would mimic the scanning process by pointing first to rows and then the columns within the selected row.
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