Enabling josh to communicate

I keep thinking that I should document this journey we are taking with Josh, but then I get distracted and busy and time passes and I forget the details of what happened and then trying to write it down just starts to feel overwhelming, you know? So maybe if I take baby steps and just tell a story or two, eventually I will get the story told. Maybe. If I don't get distracted again.

And now I don't even know where to start. Maybe with what my days are consumed with lately? That's pretty easy. J's vocab. I have spent half of the last two months trying to design j's vocab. Since some of you won't know understand what I'm talking about, let me explain. Most kids' vocab just spews out of their mouth. This doesn't happen with josh. For some reason, as far as I can remember from random research on the Internet, the connections in his brain don't allow for verbal language so we have provided him with a prosthetic voice via the ipad and some communication software, Proloquo2go to be specific. And while Pro2go comes preset with vocab, it didn't flow very well when I tried to model it.

Sidebar:
As much as I can, I talk to j using his AAC (augmentive alternative communication) in addition to my words. I model language. It's basically giving a kid input in the way that we want them to be able to output. In typically developing kids, we just talk because we assume they will be able to talk. When j was little, we modeled sign language because that was a way he could communicate, and now we talk while we tap buttons on his AAC in order to teach him how to use it.

Anyhow, with the preset pro2go vocab, modeling was clunky and awkward so I reorganized it based on a different AAC system that I liked. Well, halfway reorganized. I'm still working on it. This stuff takes time! And then just when I thought I had it almost set up, I learn about something else like Core vocab and I end up fiddling more. Basically, prosthetics are tough. There's a reason God gave us a voice. It's so much easier than AAC, but what do you do? Keep plugging along, I guess.

Honestly, it's been a wild ride these last two months. As j has become familiar with his AAC, he has blown my mind repeatedly. When you kid doesn't talk, you pretty much have no idea what they know, what they understand, what they are capable of. We are just starting to see how incredibly smart j is! And I'm not saying he's cognitively on par with his peers, he is definitely still delayed in every area of development aside from sheer physical growth (his pediatrician just told me to watch his weight. What? Whatever...) but the things that come out of his (prosthetic) mouth make me want to cry. And not just the things he says. As he has found language, other skills have emerged!

I should tell you some stories...