A Little Talk and a Lot of Pictures

by Kristina Chew

category: Communication

Published May 29, 2009 @ 12:22AM PT

Talk talk talk.

But a picture now---it's worth that proverbial thousand words.

Over the years of being with Charlie, Jim and I've become more and more aware of how much we talk. Jim's a long-time fast-talking Jersey guy (though the real fast talker in the family was actually his mother, when she was better). I started off shy and quiet (liked Latin because I didn't have to converse, just memorize columns of endings and vocabulary) but I'm a reasonably big/fast talker now (gotta keep up). The two of us can let off long bouts of verbiage (and we both go to Charlie's IEP meetings.......).

I'm third-generation Chinese American and my family is more inclined to be quiet. Our family get-togethers always involve food, Chinese and otherwise. Silence has its power too; silence, too, can speak; silence can be a way of communicating, too.

Charlie, as noted here, is a boy of limited words, and with plenty to say. He had apraxia when younger; years of speech therapy (including oral-motor therapy), articulation practice, and physical activity and exercise (to build up his muscles and muscle control) have helped tremendously. Charlie's regularly encouraged to speak in his classroom. In the past few weeks, he's been speaking spontaneously and more often. Yesterday, standing by the kitchen sink, he caught my eye, smiled, and said "Hi." In the YMCA pool last Saturday, he announced "I got the boat today"----the pool was not as busy as usual due to the Memorial Day holiday and Charlie was able to play with some of the pool toys, without anyone hollering "I want that next!" in his ear. And while it's certainly necessary to model talking and speech for Charlie, Jim and I have learned to slow it down and speak at a pace that suits Charlie who, for all of his struggles with articulation and word recall and auditory processing, prefers speech to other forms of communication.

This is why we've yet to seriously start teaching him to use an augmentative communication device though lately some other things have been suggesting that Charlie may soon be ready for one.

Dora's been posting about using ProLoquo2Go on an iPhone or an iPod Touch and the May 27th USA Today recently reported about this, too. Charlie's been very into the blue iPod Nano he got for his birthday of late. We bought him one of the original iPod Shuffles a couple of years ago but he was never interested in it and we deduced that he really needed a visual to go with the music. I like the idea of the iPod Touch for Charlie with its much bigger screen though he hasn't yet figured out how to use a touch screen.

Also: Charlie's been using an activity/picture schedule for the past few years at school. It's just in the past few months that he's been really going to the schedule, looking at what he's to do, and doing it, all on his own. We started having him use schedules in the afternoon after school and on the weekends back in March and, as of the past week, he's also been using it much more independently, turning the pages of the little binder that the cards are in, pulling out the card, turning to us, telling us what he's going to do. Some pages have more than one card on them so he can choose what he wants to do---a small innovation that has been making a big difference.

Charlie pretty much always goes straight to the refrigerator and opens the door after he walks into our house. Often he is indeed hungry and gets something to eat. But sometimes he's gotten some food (even something he likes a lot) and cried out, or seemed distressed. We've divined that maybe he isn't really hungry but, according to his internal schedule, he feels that he has to check that fridge and eat. Thursday afternoon, after checking the fridge and then the schedule, and taking off his shoes and putting away his bookbag, Charlie turned to the page with "have a snack" and "relax" on it. He paused, grabbed the "relax" card, told me he wanted to take a break, and went off to his room. After ten minutes he came out, went back to the schedule, took the "have a snack" card and told me that's what he wanted. And proceeded to open a cabinet and find something to munch on.

It's the "relax" card that has been a major innovation around here. Certainly Charlie does his share of it (with all those long school days and all those walks to the playground, YMCA swims, bike rides, a boy's gotta get some rest). Somehow, though, seeing "relax" as something he could choose to do has made a difference---small and significant---as if telling Charlie, we're not always asking him to be up and about and doing some activity on the activity schedule. That taking it easy is all part of the program too.

And it's very good for us not to be constantly telling Charlie that, but for him to be telling himself.