Lily has been doing so well with her Proloquo2go and learning how to use it to communicate. The last time I updated (Lily’s Journey With Proloquo2go) we were focusing on feelings and using the phrase I want ______ where she could request a certain toy or snack.
Since then I have tweaked those folders a bit (added some toys, added ‘thirsty’ to her feelings, etc) but our main focuses have been adding a Verbs folder, a Little Words folder, and an About Me folder.
This is what her home page looks like now (first image). If you click “more”, it goes to what you see in the second image. That second page has a bit of work that needs to be done and it’s a little disorganized, but it’s a start.
The About Me has been fairly easy to teach Lily. I added it to give her some more things to talk about when just chatting about people. From her home page, Lily can easily click ‘more’, and then ‘about me’ and it will lead her to the page that you see below. I had a lot of fun learning what her favourite colour is and what she wants to be when she grows up, as we sat together and programmed it in. She was adamant that her favourite colour is black because that is the colour of her hair. I made a folder for jobs and slowly went through and confirmed that she knew what each job was, and then asked her to show me what she wants to be when she grows up. It is sweet that her ayahs are so caring and good with her that that is who she wants to be like. She has no concept of the words ‘best friend’, so that took some explaining. She also doesn’t know anything about geography and I still don’t know if she understand what ‘I live in Hyderabad, India’ means, although we pulled out a globe and I tried to explain it to her as best as I could.
To go along with this, I decided to start teaching her what cerebral palsy is. Maybe one day she can use her P2G to give people more information about her diagnosis, when they stare at her or ask questions. It would be so great if one day, when people approach me and ask about her, if I could just tell them to ask Lily and she could use her P2G to communicate and educate them. A lot of people here in India don’t know what cerebral palsy is. That is why you see the button ‘I have cerebral palsy’. She and I are watching some videos together where she can see characters with CP to help her understand why she has trouble doing things like walking, talking, and holding a pen. I don’t know how much she understands yet, but she is really excited by this button and points to her leg and then touches it often.
Teaching Lily verbs and little words (and, in, the, on, with, etc) will be more of a process. Lily lived in an orphanage for the first 7 years of her life. She was spoken to in Telugu and was exposed to English. When she came to us, she couldn’t speak at all and we realized quickly that she didn’t fully understand Telugu (or English). She had a lot of vocabulary and command words in Telugu (go, come, eat, etc) but no one had really spoken to her much. She wasn’t able to follow 2-step instructions or answer yes/no questions. Now that we have had her for almost 2 years, she is more fluent in English than she is in Telugu, but she is still not fully fluent. She has a ton of vocabulary and is able to speak many words as well, but she can’t put sentences together. She can answer yes/no questions now but still struggles with other “w” questions (who, what, where, when, why). All that to say, I want Lily to be able to use P2G to speak fluently and to create unique sentences. Because of that, we are working on teaching her to form a proper sentence.
The verbs that we are focusing on first are ‘put’ and ‘get’. She didn’t know either of these words. The little word that I am focusing on is ‘in’. When she opens her Verbs folder, this is what it looks like. Some of these verbs she knows well (come, drink, eat, go, look, play, pray, sleep) but the others (get, give, and put) she needs to be taught.
When she opens her Little Words folder, this is what she sees. She doesn’t know any of these words or how to use them properly, so this will take awhile to teach her.
In order to teach her these words, we are doing a lot of fun, play-based activities where she has to use her P2G to continue the game and tell me what she wants.
BABY ACTIVITY: Lily loves to play with her baby dolls so I used that to incorporate teaching her these words. First, I will model how to use the P2G as I type “go get baby” (baby is in her Activities folder). Once she gets the baby, I will once model how to play the game as I type “put baby in ____ (fill in with a certain room in the house)”. On her 2nd home page I created a Places folder and all the rooms in our house are listed.
I realized in this that Lily doesn’t know the names of most rooms in our home. She is catching on now though. I model it and then she brings the baby to the room I say. She types “sleep, baby” in her P2G. We then have the baby pretend to sleep but wake up crying. She loves this and thinks it is really funny. “Oh, no! The baby doesn’t want to sleep here! We have to choose a different room for the baby to sleep in. Lily, where should we put the baby?” I ask her. It is then her turn. She has to type “put baby in _____ (room choice)” and we continue the game like this.
COOKING ACTIVITY: Lily loves to pretend cook and when I ask her what activity she wants to play, she often chooses cooking. I created a folder where all the items in the cooking set are listed. In a Things folder, it opens up to various options (only 2 for now, but eventually I will add more). If she clicks Cooking, it will show buttons for all the pieces in her cooking set.
In this game, she has to tell me what foods to put in the frying pan so we can make dinner. This sentence sounds like “put ______ (food item, ex. carrot) in frying pan”. Once she is finished and all the foods are in the frying pan, she types “finished” and we mix it, and then she types “I feel hungry” and we pretend to eat. Again this works on the ‘put’ and the ‘in’ concept and I incorporate ‘get’ by putting different pieces further away from me in the room and asking her to get them.
This has all been great fun for her! I will focus on this for awhile before introducing any new concepts. I am going to brainstorm some more games that we can play using “put”, “get”, and “in” and then soon I want to start teaching “on vs. in”. It is a LOT of work for me programming this as I don’t have a clue what I am doing and am learning as I go, but it’s really fun and Lily is so excited about it!
Since then I have tweaked those folders a bit (added some toys, added ‘thirsty’ to her feelings, etc) but our main focuses have been adding a Verbs folder, a Little Words folder, and an About Me folder.
This is what her home page looks like now (first image). If you click “more”, it goes to what you see in the second image. That second page has a bit of work that needs to be done and it’s a little disorganized, but it’s a start.
The About Me has been fairly easy to teach Lily. I added it to give her some more things to talk about when just chatting about people. From her home page, Lily can easily click ‘more’, and then ‘about me’ and it will lead her to the page that you see below. I had a lot of fun learning what her favourite colour is and what she wants to be when she grows up, as we sat together and programmed it in. She was adamant that her favourite colour is black because that is the colour of her hair. I made a folder for jobs and slowly went through and confirmed that she knew what each job was, and then asked her to show me what she wants to be when she grows up. It is sweet that her ayahs are so caring and good with her that that is who she wants to be like. She has no concept of the words ‘best friend’, so that took some explaining. She also doesn’t know anything about geography and I still don’t know if she understand what ‘I live in Hyderabad, India’ means, although we pulled out a globe and I tried to explain it to her as best as I could.
To go along with this, I decided to start teaching her what cerebral palsy is. Maybe one day she can use her P2G to give people more information about her diagnosis, when they stare at her or ask questions. It would be so great if one day, when people approach me and ask about her, if I could just tell them to ask Lily and she could use her P2G to communicate and educate them. A lot of people here in India don’t know what cerebral palsy is. That is why you see the button ‘I have cerebral palsy’. She and I are watching some videos together where she can see characters with CP to help her understand why she has trouble doing things like walking, talking, and holding a pen. I don’t know how much she understands yet, but she is really excited by this button and points to her leg and then touches it often.
Teaching Lily verbs and little words (and, in, the, on, with, etc) will be more of a process. Lily lived in an orphanage for the first 7 years of her life. She was spoken to in Telugu and was exposed to English. When she came to us, she couldn’t speak at all and we realized quickly that she didn’t fully understand Telugu (or English). She had a lot of vocabulary and command words in Telugu (go, come, eat, etc) but no one had really spoken to her much. She wasn’t able to follow 2-step instructions or answer yes/no questions. Now that we have had her for almost 2 years, she is more fluent in English than she is in Telugu, but she is still not fully fluent. She has a ton of vocabulary and is able to speak many words as well, but she can’t put sentences together. She can answer yes/no questions now but still struggles with other “w” questions (who, what, where, when, why). All that to say, I want Lily to be able to use P2G to speak fluently and to create unique sentences. Because of that, we are working on teaching her to form a proper sentence.
The verbs that we are focusing on first are ‘put’ and ‘get’. She didn’t know either of these words. The little word that I am focusing on is ‘in’. When she opens her Verbs folder, this is what it looks like. Some of these verbs she knows well (come, drink, eat, go, look, play, pray, sleep) but the others (get, give, and put) she needs to be taught.
When she opens her Little Words folder, this is what she sees. She doesn’t know any of these words or how to use them properly, so this will take awhile to teach her.
In order to teach her these words, we are doing a lot of fun, play-based activities where she has to use her P2G to continue the game and tell me what she wants.
BABY ACTIVITY: Lily loves to play with her baby dolls so I used that to incorporate teaching her these words. First, I will model how to use the P2G as I type “go get baby” (baby is in her Activities folder). Once she gets the baby, I will once model how to play the game as I type “put baby in ____ (fill in with a certain room in the house)”. On her 2nd home page I created a Places folder and all the rooms in our house are listed.
I realized in this that Lily doesn’t know the names of most rooms in our home. She is catching on now though. I model it and then she brings the baby to the room I say. She types “sleep, baby” in her P2G. We then have the baby pretend to sleep but wake up crying. She loves this and thinks it is really funny. “Oh, no! The baby doesn’t want to sleep here! We have to choose a different room for the baby to sleep in. Lily, where should we put the baby?” I ask her. It is then her turn. She has to type “put baby in _____ (room choice)” and we continue the game like this.
COOKING ACTIVITY: Lily loves to pretend cook and when I ask her what activity she wants to play, she often chooses cooking. I created a folder where all the items in the cooking set are listed. In a Things folder, it opens up to various options (only 2 for now, but eventually I will add more). If she clicks Cooking, it will show buttons for all the pieces in her cooking set.
In this game, she has to tell me what foods to put in the frying pan so we can make dinner. This sentence sounds like “put ______ (food item, ex. carrot) in frying pan”. Once she is finished and all the foods are in the frying pan, she types “finished” and we mix it, and then she types “I feel hungry” and we pretend to eat. Again this works on the ‘put’ and the ‘in’ concept and I incorporate ‘get’ by putting different pieces further away from me in the room and asking her to get them.
This has all been great fun for her! I will focus on this for awhile before introducing any new concepts. I am going to brainstorm some more games that we can play using “put”, “get”, and “in” and then soon I want to start teaching “on vs. in”. It is a LOT of work for me programming this as I don’t have a clue what I am doing and am learning as I go, but it’s really fun and Lily is so excited about it!
No comments:
Post a Comment