We did it!

This post has been copied from our "Care Page"
Posted Jun 19, 2011 6:42am


Well guys...we did it!! We got Brady his iPad! Thanks to everyone who contributed to the design of the "Hope For Brady" kit, and to all who purchased either the Hope For Brady MEGA kit or the BIG Bundle...we raised almost enough money to fully fund Brady's iPad!
Brady has been amazing with how quickly he picked up using the iPad his favorite app is this neat little puzzle app we picked up for free. I was amazed when he started doing it, at how quickly he can solve each puzzle! He has REALLY taken to the iPad. There are quite a few other learning apps we have put on the iPad. He has his favorites and knows them by their picture...he swishes through the pages like a pro to find the ones he wants to do! The animal puzzle one is his favorite, but he also really likes another "puzzle" one where there is one of those stackable ring things, where you have to stack the rings by size with the largest at the bottom. he just loves it!
Another exciting thing is, he has been making more consonant sounds, and his speech therapist is very encouraged by this. She feels that even though at this time, he has the verbal skills of a 12 month old, that with the basic sounds he IS making, and with the help of the iPad...she thinks that he eventually will be able to speak!

Brady's speech therapist has asked us to load a bunch of real life pictures into the speech app on his iPad. So, over the last couple of weeks I have been snagging all sorts of real life images from google images for the speech app on Brady's iPad. Brady loves Cherrios, so, one of the pictures loaded was a picture of a Cherrios box. In this app when I load a picture, it allows you to type what the picture is, so I typed "Cherrios", I did this for many of Bradys favorite things. Then if Brady touches the picture of the Cherrios, the app will say "Cherrios". I also made all of the images I collected into 2 inch by 2 inch picture cards, for Brady to use as PECS cards. PECS is a picture exchange system that is used by some non verbal childern. It is what Brady has been using in the early childhood program at the Byron pre school, so it is what he is used to. It is basically the same concept that the iPad will do for him. But the iPad will hold hundreds of the images and SPEAKS the words for him. This way we can use the cards and the iPad at the same time with the same exact picture to show him what we want him to do is the same concept. Eventually we won't need to use the cards at all and will just use the iPad.
Anyway, the other night after I had loaded several real life pictures of Brady's favorite snack foods, I had to try it out. So on the one screen I made for him I put a picture of the brand of string cheese we get, a picture of the Sun Maid raisin box, along with pictures of a doughnut, Brady's favorite yogurt, and butterscotch pudding. I was very curious to see what Brady would do. Brady loves string cheese so that is what I tried first. I pulled out the string cheese and Brady got excited. I asked Brady what he wanted, and pointed to the pictures on the iPad, and then I only gave Brady a piece of string cheese if he asked for it by pushing the correct button out of the 5 pictures...and HE DID IT!! Over and over again with each piece of string cheese I pulled off!! Then we had raisins, another favorite snack...and he did the same thing with the raisins!! Then after the snacks were all gone, of course he wanted to play with all the buttons...BUT WOW!! So very exciting!!

Disclaimer: The information on this blog is NOT intended to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a qualified licensed healthcare provider. Any recommendations are for educational purposes only and are believed to be effective. However, since USE of any information provided herein by others is beyond the control of Michelle Bacon, RN, no expressed or implied guarantee as to the effectiveness of this information can be given nor liability taken.