In January of this year, my ‘Who’, Fraser, was at a point in his life where frustration at his lack of ability to communicate, was causing him and us, an incredible amount of stress. All he wanted was to look things up on Google and Youtube, but he couldn’t always tell us what it was. He has a limited vocabulary, and sometimes he would say things like ‘Nemo’, if he wanted to look at Finding Nemo. He could say ‘Tigger’ if he wanted to look up ‘The Tigger Movie’, but there were things he wanted to look up that we simply couldn’t work out. You can imagine how upset he became, repeating something over and over, that we couldn’t understand. At times he would just sit and cry. It was utterly heartbreaking, seeing him so distressed. So, I thought, why not try to teach him to type? I had actually tried a few years before, but he had not been ready and/or willing. We had nothing to lose if it didn’t work, but as it turns out, it miraculously did. Here’s what I did…
The first thing I tried at my first attempt a few years ago, was to lock the computer with a password, which was his name. Whenever he wanted to use it, he had to type in F R A S E R. It was simply a matter of holding his pointer finger , and moving it on the keyboard from one letter to the next. Before too long, he was typing it in himself.
Fast forward to 2014…he remembered how to type his name, so I used the thing he was into at the time…’Toy Story 2′. I used the same simple process. I would hold his pointer finger and press each of the letters one by one, while saying the names of the letters, numbers and keys at the same time. T O Y SPACE S T O R Y SPACE 2 ENTER. Within a couple of hours he was doing it himself. We stood there in awe feeling proud and amazed which was an awesome feeling, but the look on his face eclipsed that by a mile. He looked proud of himself. Something that, as far as i’m aware, he’s never felt before. He also looked like he couldn’t quite believe that he made Toy Story 2 images come up on the screen. It was like the world had just opened up for him.
So from there I continued with different movies and things he was interested in. He began spelling them out loud, and when we asked him to spell some of the movie titles, he was verbally able to spell them for us. He developed a voracious appetite for books and the alphabet. He has got some books that he’s had since he was little, that we used to teach him to spell every day items (listed below). I would hold his finger on each letter and say it out loud, then say the whole word, then point to the picture and say the word again. Before long, he could spell every word in every book. He was coming along in leaps and bounds.
I spoke to his teacher at his special school about what we were doing. She asked me if we wanted her to persevere with trying to get him to learn to hand write or if we wanted her to use that time to build on his typing. He is never going to write, so I jumped at the chance, so now he does typing at school instead. He also has a sentence written out about his day, he has a copy of the sentence cut up into individual words, that he has to put back together.
The next thing I did, was to make him a dictionary of words that he likes to look up, the names of all the people in his family, food and drinks that he might like. He has now learned the words, and can spell all of them back to us. We have now progressed on to doing the same with the Magic 100 words. So far he has completed his golden and red words! The dictionary is simply words in categories, such as our names, movie titles, foods etc. I typed them up on the computer, printed them and put them into a display book.
When I look back at the journey that bought us to this point, there are a few things that I just happened to do right along the way! The first thing was to play vocabulary videos, from the time we worked out something was wrong. So from the time he was almost 2, he was watching them and enjoyed them on a daily basis. The other thing was the word books I mentioned previously. We would go through the words and if we could, would show him a real item to match. For example, if the word was ‘shoe’, I would show him a real shoe. If the word was ‘comb’ I would show him a comb. If possible, I tried to buy items that closely matched the pictures. I did the same thing with the vocabulary videos. I also had alphabet books that I used. I had a variety from the local bookstore.
I am happy to report that he is still continuing to progress. He has an iPad, so he sometimes looks things up that he wants (he somehow manages to find things on youtube, by just touching links that he sees). He will pause on the title screen, then bring the iPad to the computer and copy the writing from the screen into the search engine onto the computer!! These gadgets are opening up a whole new world.
My sister and I have created an app called ‘Emotion Fonts’, that allows children (and adults) to select a font that represents and emotion, such as anger (bold black font), happy (apple green type) and sad (light blue soft looping font), to allow communication and intent to be clearer for everyone. The app can be used as a little whiteboard, or you send your message via email, Facebook and Twitter which we hope will help teenagers especially.
If you are reading this, you maybe looking for ways to help your child communicate better. I truly hope this information helps. The best advice I can give is to just give it a shot! Apart from some possible disappointment, there is not much to lose at all, and look at the gains you and your child might make.
Below are a list of items that I have found that have been particularly helpful. Apart from the Emotion Fonts app, I am not affiliated with any of these products. They are simply the ones that not only have worked for us, but that Fraser has actually loved and I highly recommend them.
Baby Bumblebee Vocabulary Builder DVD’s. Search http://www.babybumblebee.com
Baby’s First Library. We have ABC, Words, Numbers, Animals, Food, Vroom and School. They are available at Amazon, and are great because each page has one large picture with the word written underneath. We have had these books for years and have certainly stood the test of time. I have put his name stickers over the ‘Baby’s First Library’ title, as I don’t want him to feel anything other than pride, but these books as therapy and a teaching tool are fantastic.
Find them here : http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=babys+first+library&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Ababys+first+library
The app, ‘Emotion Fonts’ is available on iTunes for $1.29. We would have loved to be able to make the app available for free, but building an app is quite an expensive exercise, and we have not allowed any advertising on the app, so as to keep it simple.
Find it here : https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/emotionfonts/id779305002?mt=8
Just to finish, I want you to know that Fraser is 11 years old. We never thought he would be able to do this, and he has. His paediatrician was blown away by the fact that he can do this. When I told him about at our last appointment he said “you know, if you had have asked me if I thought Fraser would be able to type, I would have said the chances aren’t good, but we should obviously never underestimate these kids’. It’s so true. You just never know what is going on in those minds of theirs (what we wouldn’t give to know)! It doesn’t matter how young or old your child is. It doesn’t matter if they have Autism and Intellectual Disability like Fraser, or just one or just the other. It’s worth a try. Our hope for the future, is that this new skill will build and he will be able to tell us the things he is feeling. For years I have asked one question, over and over, and I hope one day, if he can’t tell me what it is, he can type it. Hopefully soon when I again ask him ‘what’s your favourite colour’?, he’ll type me the answer. When I find out, i’ll let you know 🙂 I truly wish you all the best. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment and let me know any success stories. I’d love to hear them.
Kitty
xx
AUTnotISM 