Toren came to me at age 32 months. He had 2 words: Ma Ma and Bye Bye. He could not focus, but ran around the room. His mother was convinced I was going to have him cured by his third birthday. I told her I was no miracle worker, but we'd do what we could during the next 4 months. Immediately we started structuring Toren's day. I went home and worked up a program called 'Toren's Nouns'. The first day I showed Toren the program, he looked at it for 10-15 seconds and then left the computer. The next day he stayed about 30 seconds. Each day he built up more time at the computer. By the second week, he would sit on my lap for 10 minutes pressing whichever word he wanted to hear. But he spoke no sounds, no words. Three weeks passed. I began berating myself. 'See, Jo, you thought this noun program was so great. Look at Toren, he's not learning anything.' The fourth week Toren walked over to the computer, picked up the overlay from the IntelliKeys keyboard, pointed to 10 different words and approximated each word. That day, I cried.
Have you already loved sleeping?
But, I spent the next three weeks making a piece of simple software for her son to her specifications. While I was at it, I put 4-8 pictures on the screen as well. The simple program was finished and ready for her child to see. As I was presenting it, the other children in my classroom were pushing each other to get to the computer screen to touch that Touch Window and hear the word spoken again and again. I looked at these kids and was amazed. There was no music, no animation, nothing cute about this program at all, just real pictures with real words. I was stunned. I just watched the children. Within 10 minutes, several children who had never said a word in their life, made approximations of several words. I was hooked.
Hasn't Buddy ever liked swimming?
Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again. -James R. Cook
Donna's daughter hasn't practiced playing yet.
