introduction

[Guest guest]

Hello,

I'm na, mother of three beautifull children Barty (12) Fe

(8) and María (9), and live in Argentina. Fe is a bright child

with a bilateral fronto-parietal brain damage. After two years ago he

didn't have any diagnose for his behaviour. He had been treated as

profound deaf, but he could hear even the singing of birds and he

couldn't stand hearing aids...besides, he couldn't pick up sign

language. His therapist found out he reallly could hear, but there

was a cognitive problem....Well, they said he had a specific language

impairment, but in treatment he didn't have intentionality and wasn't

colaborative, plus many other autistic behaviors.

I myselve had to research as many of you there, and understood his

behaviour. He is in the autistic spectrum, with verbal apraxia and

word finding deficits and poor attention span. We have been working

in his autistic behaviors and language for these last years, with few

work in his apraxia. THis was because I couldn't find a SLP willing

to use augmentative communication and work in communicative

situations. Just clasical oro-facial praxis with no efect (how he can

repeat words that doesn't mean anything to him?)

Fortunatelly, I can say now that he is able to communicate, tell us

what he did at school, make jockes, and use signs in many

environments. Schooll is not collaborative with pictures

communication symbols iether, but I teach him at home all the tools

he can use there.

I see that you are fighting for your right to get found to get your

child's dynavox. I have to tell you the here I have to pay for

everything. At least, if a pay they have to do a good work jejeje.

I don't know if JF will speak (orally) some day. But he is attending

normal school in an inclusion program (developed by me) and he is

able to communicate. I prepare him to being able to suport a high

tech device when he by himself will be able to care for it. I think

this is all I can do with the resourses i can find in my country. I

prepared myself to re-educate my son, and want to educate other other

parents and professionals in this country to treat this children. I

saw there are many children without propper rehab and parents don't

know what a lot they can do for them.

I need a help from you. Counseling. In order to let my child use

signs, or codes as I say, we worked with PECS (Pictures exchange

communication symbols) so he can develope principles of communication

and, at this time, syntax. In a matter of fact, I wanted to

automatizise some linguistic chunks so he can fill in with other

words. This worked, at least in some environments. Now, we work

making aproximation in the number of sylabes those words carry. for

example, when he wants to tell something, using PECS, then we work

with the main word of the frase. I observe that even looking at the

word (he already reads words) his sylabic representation is not

correct: he repeats twice the first, or not in order, etc. THe same

hapends when he calls me. First he shouts, but I tell him I'm not

going to answer him unless he calls me properly. He sais ma ma ma ma.

Do you think I have to work in that before he starts working with

phonological aproximations? His behavior is called perseveration,

it's a lack of inhibition; besides, he has difficulty with split

attention. Had you any experience like that?

This is a great place! I learn a lot from you all