I know I’ve used up so many wishes, when it comes to Avery–please let him be okay (after his breathing issues in the NICU), please let him walk, please let him be okay (again, after surgery in Seattle) and now a new one: please let him talk.
I want Avery to have more words, and better enunciation, so that folks other than me can understand him. It’s my current, single-most overriding obsession. You might say I have my ear pressed to the prairie sod, listening for the thundering hoofs of the-next-new-thing coming down the trail.
We’ve tried so many things: I love Goosie cards , because they are so easy to customize, I love Signing Time !, because it makes signing fun for the whole family, and lately, my new favorite is Voice4u.
Voice4u is a customizable application for an iPhone or an iPod Touch. It’s a way for kids to take those zillion sheets of PECS images out into the world with them; better yet, the images can be changed to photos of the actual thing itself. I like it for other reasons, too–it works with technology that is familiar to most people, it’s compact and very portable, it seems like fun! And it sells for a price most of us can live with: $29.
I’m really excited about this product, which was originally designed for kids with autism, but like so many really good ideas, I can see lots of other uses–as a supplement to larger ACC devices, as a support to additional speech therapy for kids like Avery, as a help to the deaf, aid for people with speech loss due to stroke, and even, for toddlers frustrated by speech (in the same way that teaching signing can alleviate some of the terribleness of the Terrible Twos.)
So here is my disclaimer–I’m telling you about a product we haven’t actually used, yet. We have no iPhone! We have no way of trying out this application, but my friend Tammy has, and she loves it. If it’s good enough for Parker, it’s good enough for me.
Here it is, if you’re interested: Voice4u . Let me know what you think?
I know I’ve used up so many wishes, when it comes to Avery–please let him be okay (after his breathing issues in the NICU), please let him walk, please let him be okay (again, after surgery in Seattle) and now a new one: please let him talk.
I want Avery to have more words, and better enunciation, so that folks other than me can understand him. It’s my current, single-most overriding obsession. You might say I have my ear pressed to the prairie sod, listening for the thundering hoofs of the-next-new-thing coming down the trail.
We’ve tried so many things: I love Goosie cards , because they are so easy to customize, I love Signing Time !, because it makes signing fun for the whole family, and lately, my new favorite is Voice4u.
Voice4u is a customizable application for an iPhone or an iPod Touch. It’s a way for kids to take those zillion sheets of PECS images out into the world with them; better yet, the images can be changed to photos of the actual thing itself. I like it for other reasons, too–it works with technology that is familiar to most people, it’s compact and very portable, it seems like fun! And it sells for a price most of us can live with: $29.
I’m really excited about this product, which was originally designed for kids with autism, but like so many really good ideas, I can see lots of other uses–as a supplement to larger ACC devices, as a support to additional speech therapy for kids like Avery, as a help to the deaf, aid for people with speech loss due to stroke, and even, for toddlers frustrated by speech (in the same way that teaching signing can alleviate some of the terribleness of the Terrible Twos.)
So here is my disclaimer–I’m telling you about a product we haven’t actually used, yet. We have no iPhone! We have no way of trying out this application, but my friend Tammy has, and she loves it. If it’s good enough for Parker, it’s good enough for me.
Here it is, if you’re interested: Voice4u . Let me know what you think?