merry927:Rachel R. Romeo@RachelRRomeoI just had such an affirming experience. On my 8 hour internati
merry927:Rachel R. Romeo@RachelRRomeoI just had such an affirming experience. On my 8 hour international flight back from a conference, I sat next to a father and son. In broken English, the father began to apologize and warn me that ~10 year-old son had severe nonverbal autism, and that this would likely be a difficult journey.I told him not to worry, I was a speech-language pathologist with lots of experience with minimally verbal kiddos. Challenging behaviors began even before take off: screaming, hitting me, and grabbing for my things. The father repeatedly apologized, but did little else.I asked him how his son preferred to communicate. He didn’t seem to understand. Perhaps this was a language barrier, but I think instead the child had very little experience with communication therapy. I put away the talk I was working on & asked if I could try. He nodded.I tried to see if he was stimulable for a communication board. I started pulling up some standard images for basic nouns on my computer but I could tell that screens really bothered him. So I summoned my god-awful drawing skills and tried to create a (very!) low-tech board.And by god, it clicked. I made symbols for the things he was grabbing, for his favorite stuffed penguin, and for his dad. He took to it very quickly. I introduced way more symbols than I normally would, but hey, how often do we get an 8-hour session?!But the end of the flight, he made several requests, initiated several times, & his behaviors had reduced quite a bit. The father was astounded - clearly no one had ever tried an AAC (assistive and augmentative communication) approach with him. I gave him the paper & showed him how to use it, and he nearly cried.This was the human desire for communication, pure and simple. To connect with another person and share a thought. Communication is a basic human right, and I was overjoyed to help someone find it. What a privilege and a gift.As I face the upcoming job cycle and the nearly endless impostor syndrome of academia, this was precisely the reminder I needed about why I love studying language/communication development. I was a good day to be an #SLP (speech and language pathologist)!Aug 28, 2019 -- source link