The Joseph Robert Shaw Foundation

Helping Children Recover from Brain Injury

Learning Prepositions

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I was gathering my things to leave Joey’s house, when I heard Joey say “under” from the eye gaze device. He’d been playing with a toy bee on his tray and he’d lost it. As I chatted with his mom, he said “bee, grasshopper, fly” and pointed in the direction of the floor. But I was busy with my conversation, and didn’t really notice what was going on. And so, he reached deeper into his repertoire. UNDER. He told me where I could find the item. Independently. Without prompting.

Like so many times with Joey, one small word is so meaningful.  [Read more…]

Another Great Book for Supporting AAC! – Ball, by

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One of the more powerful ways I’ve found to encourage Joey’s communication on the eye gaze device is to read wordless picture books that still have a substantial storyline- or at least books with limited words on each page. These books are great for all kindergarteners because they allow a child to enjoy a full, exciting story, while also using their pre-reading skills to read the book independently.

Mary Sullivan’s book, Ball! is our current favorite almost-wordless book. Its central character is a dog who has one thought – ball. The dog may be dreaming of a ball, chasing a ball, asking for the ball to be thrown, or looking for a lost ball, but he continues to only use the word ball to communicate his wants and needs. [Read more…]

Supporting All Types of Communication: Chatting vs Responding

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As we prepared Joey for school, I noticed a dip in his AAC output data. There were many reasons for this, and a main one was that Joey is becoming stronger at navigating his device. Although he still may select the wrong icon, he is able to navigate himself back to the right page faster. He selects fewer wrong pictures, which leads to a decrease in total output, but an increase in meaningful output.

Yet as I look over our back and forth communication over the last month, I suspect there is another reason the output decreased. Early on in August, we introduced a social story to Joey about being quiet in school – and how sometimes he will need to be quiet, and sometimes he will be able to talk. Read alouds were a time when he would need to be quiet, and share his thoughts and ideas when a teacher asked him to.  [Read more…]

Connecting Communication with Grammar

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A, As. Ases. Dog. dogs. Doges. Is. ises. Iseses. 

Joey grins at me as he explores the newly discovered -s button on his device. It’s fun to be able to suddenly add ‘s’ to your words, and he’s enjoyed seeing just how many ‘s’s he can add to a word. At first I felt put out by his distracted activity with the ‘s’ button, but then I remembered that if Joey is going to learn how to make words plural, he is going to have to know how to use the +s button. So explore away. Sillyeseseseses [Read more…]

First Day of School Success!

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Since last week’s post, I’ve gotten texts, calls, and questions about how Joey’s first day of school went. Far more than anyone asking about my own daughters’ first day of school. But I get it. Joey is Joey, and we all spent all summer waiting for this day.

I felt very lucky that my session with Joey was scheduled for a few hours after his first day of kindergarten. I couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say about his day, and how he felt about it all. In my mind, I would sit down and he would immediately start talking non-stop. 

Of course, what really happened is exactly what I had already experienced when I tried to talk to my own daughter about her first day of school. My questions were met with a big grin, and then the subject was changed a few times. These five year olds had already lived their first day – who wants to talk about it again? The five year olds don’t have time to slow down and chat – they have things to do!

Slowly, I remembered that the only way to get information out of my own daughter was to ask distinct, direct questions – so I changed my questions and my expectations, and gained a little more insight.

So how was it?  [Read more…]

Saturday Serenade

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Test post for Saturday Serenades https://www.musichealsglennjan.com/saturday-serenades

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