Box Days

I am so excited!!! I figured out how to embed my youtube into my blog!!! Woohoo! I knew there was a way, but could not figure it out before now! Sorry, but am very excited about this!

Anyways, here is a video of my Andrew and his box. We are learning how to use this very powerful speech generating device. It is called the Vantage Plus. There are thousands of words in the box, and we know so very little about it right now. It definately has the power to create spontaneous original speech, but that is for someone who knows exactly where all of those words are hiding! We don't yet, so we are trying to figure out how to make it work into our lives. It is quite an effort really. Wish you could just hand the kid the box and say "Speak!" and have him speak!!! But that is just not the case. Oh well, so we try and we work and we play with it. We have taken it with us on some outings this week, ie the YMCA, McDonalds ect. I tried to get Andrew to use it to order his food, but he didn't want to, okay, next time though!!! Tonight while the kids were playing at McDonalds I added in some very functional fun stuff for him. I am hoping to do some things like this so he will keep interested in the box long enough for us to learn more about it so he can actually begin to communicate! That will be my challenge, I am afraid. I am trying to give him success with it where ever I can. He is such a trooper.

As I watch this video, I do realize how very quiet he is. I mean, there are moments he is anything but quiet, our home is definately not void of sound! But it is not so full of words. Nicole is getting more words, and it is fun to hear what she is thinking about. I am starting to hear that some more with Andrew. Tonight on the way home he told me about the clouds in the sky! That was through gesture, sign and some of the Andrew Language I know and love, but not so much with words. I am hoping the box will give us the words. I am crossing my fingers hard on this one!!!