Beginning to Catch Up...

I have had some really amazing experiences working with the device over the last week. On Monday, I had the opportunity to speak and be interviewed through Skype at a conference in San Antonio, Texas where Digital Bridges was being represented. There were over a hundred people in attendance at the conference, and I was able to talk about what I am doing with this project. When I explained that I am working with this child to fix the device to be more user friendly for him to communicate with society and that I am taking the device back to him very soon, the room erupted into applause. I was thrilled. The mayor of Milledgeville was also being interviewed alongside me, so I got to meet him, too. He was there to represent Milledgeville and to tell what Digital Bridges is going to bring the area and community here. I was proud of how I interviewed and that I was able to communicate my thoughts clearly to the audience at hand.
On Tuesday, I updated and showed Dr. Wills what I have been doing with the project. He helped me figure a few things out with the Dynavox. The film team came to school that day to get footage of the student and I working together with the device. He did great. There is definitely a great attraction to the on/off button, but once we got past that, he really took to the idea of pushing a button and receiving the item he asked for by using the device. I would hold a cracker, and when he pushed the cracker button, I would hand over the cracker. The instant gratification really helped him see the connection between hitting the button and getting the desired response. I also sent a note home to inform and update his mother on the progress.
On Wednesday I received an email from the student’s speech therapist and learned a lot about what to add and work on for the student. It really hit home for me when the Speech Language Pathologist wrote that she would use the device in therapy, if I can make this work for him. This just reminded me how much ability and use this device could have and that the impact on the child’s life could really be huge. I really want to set up a meeting to show the SLP what I have done and see if the changes work with what they are trying to accomplish with the student.
On Friday I attended a luncheon for my scholarship put on by GCSU. I enjoyed the opportunity to represent the Knight Foundation, talk about my project, and meet a lot of interesting people. It is a great honor to be invited to eat lunch with all of the scholarship donors. These people have worked hard in life and have a ton of wisdom to share with this next generation of students. The lunch was held in Magnolia Ballroom and was very well attended by students, faculty, and donors. I loved the opportunity to meet and mingle with other very bright students who are also working very hard in their fields of study. It is important that all of the students receive some recognition for the efforts, sports, good grades, personality, and so many other things about the individuals that got them the scholarships in the first place.
I worked extremely hard to finish up the “My Phrases” section and get some recommendations about what changes should still be made to the device. I found out that I really needed a larger and more visible way for the student to get back to the home page at any time. I reprogrammed one button in each section to be a back button with a new symbol that better represents what the child would see as moving back to the home page. I deleted all 390 something pages of phrases! There is no way that a three year old needs that many pages of phrases!!! He needs six or so main phrases. That is it. I have it set up to close after he presses a button from there to go back to his main page. I am going to create five more complex phrases in a different area that could be accessed by the parent, teacher, or Speech teacher in order that the information is there, but only accessible when needed. I will surly need to teach the appropriate people how to work the other sections. These phrases will move the student’s use of the device forward without making it more complicated for him to navigate. Simple is still the best idea at this point in his life. I can always add more and more information, but right now we are going for simple. Very, very simple.
(10 hrs)