eyegaze

Ben is 9!

/ jess / 1 Comment

Ben is now 9! I just reread my last proper blog about Ben’s birthday, when he turned 7, and much of it I would like to repeat: I can’t believe he’s 9! He’s so tall! Well done us for 9 years of parenting!

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A lot has happened in the last two years, though in many ways things for Ben and us can seem similar – the appointments, the physio, the school, his interests. When you are there every day you don’t notice your kids growing up, until you catch sight of them across a playground and cannot believe that massive child once lived in your (my) womb.

Two years ago I said Ben had:

“made huge progress on using his eyegaze computer: using it almost every day, knowing exactly what he wants to do, reliably choosing stories and then navigating through them like a pro, using communication software to create messages that were totally appropriate to the moment.”

That was true then. It is also true now: what I want to tell you on Ben’s 9th birthday is that he’s got so much better at using his eyegaze computer (and lowtech communication book). That he often knows exactly what he wants to do, will choose the story he wants and navigate through it, that he goes into and then exit activities when he wants. That he uses his communication software to say things that are entirely appropriate.

Some of what I want to say sounds so similar to 2016 that it begs the question of what  what exactly has changed since he was 7. The complexity of the way Ben learns and communicates means progress, or development, is hard won. It can be inconsistent and hard to capture precisely. I look back on Ben two years ago and I know that he wasn’t as good at navigating around his communication device as he is now. That isn’t to say he wasn’t doing those things before, but perhaps I did see small improvements and leapt on them. I know more now, I expect more of him now. In some ways Ben is doing much the same stuff he was doing two years ago, and in other ways he’s made wonderful progress.

The timescale of helping Ben learn new skills is difficult – it can take a long time. It can be hard to know whether he is improving or learning, and therefore whether you are doing the right thing. It can feel pointless to continue working on something that appears to be having little impact. We knew that communication was a long term project, probably lifelong, but you still can’t help hoping that there will be some kind of miraculous progress at some point.

Which of course there isn’t. But there is slow incremental improvement, a bit more nuance, a little more unprompted communication. It is all subtle and understated. We are talking about complex skills, involving deft eye control, motor planning, memory and language knowledge. It’s difficult to articulate, but I’ll do my best.

Two years ago Ben was using a high-tech eyegaze device that we had bought ourselves – it was a laptop with an eye tracker connected via USB. He could only use it when sat at a table. For the last 18 months he has had an NHS-funded eyegaze device which mounts to his wheel-, school- and home-chairs. He is still quite light, so his weight isn’t sufficient counterweight when the device attached which means it can’t be mounted all the time (e.g. on uneven ground), but he has it mounted on his chair at home and school for some portion of every day. For the last year he has also had additional educational funding so he has two hours of 1:1 time each day when an adult supports his communication specifically – modelling how to say something on his device, helping him find specific vocabulary, helping him use his device to do school work.

These developments have given him more time to practise and more opportunities to find pathways within his communication software. Sometimes progress doesn’t look how you imagined: over the summer he used all of this input to navigate out of his communication software every time I tried to talk to him using it. Every single time. This was disheartening – isn’t supporting his communication meant to mean he communicates with us more?

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To do this he was adeptly selecting three different cells in different positions on three different pages in order to exit his PODD communication software and then go to one of the stories on his device – clearly communicating that he didn’t want to talk to me, he wanted to read (and be read) a book. So I had to admire his determination and skill, and respect his wishes – to force him to talk would be as inappropriate as trying to make a verbal child speak to you.

Since the summer he has chilled out in this particular regard, and will now talk with his device. It is mostly in the context of a specific conversation rather than unprompted speech. It’s getting increasingly relevant and timely, with some ‘scaffolding’ provided by  his communication partner.

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For his birthday Ben’s aunt Rosie sent him some incredible shoes with lights in the soles. Once we’d opened the package and put them on, we talked about them with his device. I went to the homepage of his communication software, where there are various categories of words, and went to Special Events. He then chose ‘happy’ and ‘birthday’, and then I selected ‘present’. I said ‘this present was from…’, and I went back to the home page and into the People folder, where Ben selected ‘Rosie.

I said, ‘yes, from Rosie. And look what she’s bought you!’. I couldn’t remember where exactly to find the word but went into the ‘Clothes’ page. I then got distracted by trying to stop Molly inspecting Ben’s shoes so closely that she risked being kicked in the face. Then I heard Ben, via his device, say ‘shoes’.

He had gone to the folder called ‘shoes’ and then had ignored the cells called boots, thongs (it’s Australian software), AFOs, sandals and trainers to select the one that said ‘shoe’.

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Ben knew what I was talking about, he knew exactly which words we needed, and he found them with his eyes by navigating between pages, selecting the correct one of 18 cells on the screen, repeatedly. It’s functional, practical, appropriate communication. It’s everyday speech, only it has taken years of practice and support for this to become close to our everyday.

It’s one step further forward for a boy who has spent nine years working so hard to make himself understood. He’s 9! I’m so proud!

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The temptation to interrupt

/ jess / 2 Comments

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If you have a child who doesn’t follow the typical path it’s difficult to have a sense of where they will end up. I don’t mind this too much; I don’t find it that useful to have conversations about what Ben may, or may not, be doing in ten years time.

But everyone looks for role models for themselves or their kids, and some sense of where the path might be going. Disabled adults are rarely found in mainstream media, so I was lucky recently to be at a study day where a panel of five Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) users answered questions from the audience using high tech devices. Three of the five used eyegaze, exactly like Ben is learning to. There is a video here.

It is important, and inspiring (not in an inspiration-porn kind of way) to see people using AAC to talk so eloquently. THAT is where we want to aim for.

But I was really struck by something that one of the panellists – Kate Caryer – said at the event: she pointed out that people sometimes think of a communication aid as a gift or a toy, that users should feel grateful their local authorities have provided. Whereas it is in fact a human right.

Respecting Ben’s right to communicate means his device needs to be there, in front of him, as much as possible, not just when we decide we can fit it into his daily life. We need to make sure the batteries are charged, and the mounting arm is ready when it is needed. We need to force ourselves to fit it even when it feels like a bit too much effort on a busy day.

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But more profoundly, we have to be ready to hear what is being communicated. We have to alter our own culturally-constructed notion of how conversations work.

I find it uncomfortable to leave gaps in conversation – I feel I have to fill them. I first realised this when we lived in the Middle East and would spend time with Syrian friends who were happy to sit companionably with long pauses in conversation. I had to teach myself to enjoy this time and not fill the gaps with mindless waffle. This was made easier by my rudimentary Arabic.

Someone using a communication aid to talk is probably going to take longer, more time than a typical talking person. At the study day, it took time for the five individuals there to answer questions from the audience: they need to hear the question, navigate (with eyes or fingers) around their communication device to find the vocabulary for what they want to say, and then speak it.

This often makes conversation with an AAC user slower than we are used to, and I for one need to force myself to accept that rhythm of speech. This means waiting the extra 30 seconds to see what your conversational partner wants to say, and not interrupting. Ben isn’t able to shout immediately, in the way that Max does frequently, ‘Mummy, I was actually in the middle of talking when you interrupted me!’

I frequently screw up even when I am trying my best. I realised recently that after a conversation with a woman who uses a communication aid, I had said goodbye and walked away. I hadn’t waited to see if she wanted to say goodbye, or even if she had anything else to say. I felt a little sting of shame when I later realised. We can all have good intentions, but we don’t always behave as well as we’d like.

If you manage to fully embrace the alternative pace, there are rich rewards. A few years ago when Ben was just learning to look at Yes and No symbols on the armrests of his wheelchair to answer questions, we went to a local park and met some friends. One of them, who happens to be a nurse, crouched down in front of Ben so she was at his level, asked Ben if he was enjoying his new school, and then waited.

Ben slowly and deliberately looked down at the Yes symbol. It was the first time he had totally independently answered a question from a stranger, and it happened because she asked the question in the right way for him.

If we accept that people with communication difficulties have a right to talk – and therefore to be given the support, equipment and training they need – then they also have the right to be heard. And we, the people taking our communication skills for granted, have to learn how to listen. Not make assumptions about what is being said, or interrup, or fill the gaps in conversation with inconsequential waffle, but actually listen.

I mean it’s a good tip for life generally – many marriages could benefit from partners actually listening to what each other are saying. But rather than forcing the AAC user to navigate their way through their devices to say ‘Stop interrupting me’, maybe we should just take it upon ourselves to get our own houses in order.

 

Different kids, different kinds of walking

/ jess / 2 Comments

If, like us, you take the view that your child’s disability is part of him and try your hardest not to be negative about it in front of him, how far do you take it?

Molly has just started walking. She’s 13 months and since working out how to take a few steps two weeks ago, she has been practising at every opportunity. She has the typical waddle of a baby and is totally unfazed by dropping to her bum every so often. It’s utterly joyful to watch. If you’re feeling at all depressed by the state of the world, I would recommend spending some time watching a sweet one-year-old walk around like a very tiny drunk.

It feels like a privilege to watch a baby develop these skills and like a small miracle when they keep their balance and toddle off. We, more than most, appreciate the wonder of a baby learning to walk.

And because we are all so amazed we have spent a lot of time talking about it. Visitors comment on it. It can all be a bit of a Molly love-in.

I started to feel a bit uncomfortable about it. How does Ben feel about Molly learning to walk on her own? Is he sad that she is doing something he can’t? When we congratulate Molly does he hear an implicit criticism of him not walking? Was he not really thinking about it much until we all stood around going on and on about how brilliant she was?

I spent a day or two trying not to talk too much about Molly’s walking. Acting as if it was no big deal. Then Max asked me if I was better at maths than him, and I wondered for a moment if I should soften the blow. But then I decided to tell him yes, I was. And I said I’m definitely better at maths than James. I do have an A Level in maths after all and neither of them do.

It struck me that we can’t spend the rest of our lives not being honest about who is good at what, and what one of us can do that the other can’t do as well. Some of our kids will be good at remembering obscure cricketers (James’s genes), some will be good at chemistry (my genes). Pretty unlikely one of them will be talented at everything – so they will all have to experience that irritating feeling of knowing your sibling is better than you at something. In Ben’s case, the nature of his disability is such that he will do lots of amazing things, but some physical skills will constantly elude him. Max and Molly will do things that he can’t.

Obviously, accepting that fact doesn’t mean we need to ask questions like, ‘Isn’t it a shame that Ben can’t walk along walls like Max can?’ (this did actually happen, achieving nothing except drawing everyone’s attention to the disadvantages of being disabled and tainting an otherwise pleasant walk).

I think we have to avoid this kind of direct comparison with all of our children (tricky with Max’s constant questions comparing me to James, James to Superman, Superman to Spiderman, etc etc). Ben won’t walk unaided, but his school annual review lists ‘walking’ (with a supportive frame) under the list of What Ben Likes. Each child is on their own track and we should only compare them against their progress on that track.

Ultimately, I need to chill out and enjoy watching a small child negotiate going downstairs backwards and a four-year-old learn to write. These gross and fine motor skills are easy for parents to take for granted. Do not. See them for the incredible feats of co-ordination that they are. Hold them dear and cherish each milestone.

As a postscript that demonstrates that being an ally to my disabled child is still very much a work in progress, I should mention that I suddenly realised I had written this whole post without asking Ben what he actually thought. So I sat down with him and his eyegaze computer, and modelled what I thought:

‘Molly – walk – great’

I asked him what he thought. He chose:

‘I don’t want to do it’ … ‘Good’

He then got frustrated that I was delaying him listening to The Faraway Tree.

Fair response. Jog on, Mummy, stop asking me stupid questions about my sister walking…

Ben is 7!

/ jess / 4 Comments

Ben is seven! We celebrated with, amongst other things, an egg-free chocolate cake that I whizzed up in our blender and gave to Ben through his feeding tube.

With every passing year I sound a bit more like my mum: “I can’t believe you’re seven years old! I remember when you were just a baby!” But it’s true – I am genuinely surprised that we have been parents for seven years and that Ben is so big and tall.

As with all recent birthdays, James made a Ben-themed video of the past year and we watched it with our family, projected on to the wall. I would recommend this as a way not so much of celebrating the child’s birthday, though Ben and Max enjoy seeing themselves, but more as a way of congratulating oneself on another year of parenting. It is heartening to see how much children have changed and grown over the year, how much you have done with them, and ultimately how justified you are in feeling so tired.

The other thing that we realise when we (James) make these videos is that there is always way too much material. We have done too much fun stuff and taken too many photos and videos to fit into one short film. It makes obvious that Ben is living a full life, with variety and fun, surrounded by loving family.

Just after Ben’s birthday he had an appointment at our local rehabilitation centre where wheelchair services, assistive technology and other helpful services are based. There are always all sorts of disabled people coming in and out for appointments. I was sitting in reception with Ben and Molly, waiting to be called. Molly was a bit grumpy because she hadn’t yet had her morning bottle of milk, Ben was happy watching a screen showing footage from four security cameras. A lady in a wheelchair was pushed close to us (and I have written that in the passive deliberately, because the person pushing didn’t ask her where she wanted to wait). She was an older lady, I would guess in her seventies, immaculately dressed and made up. She smiled at us and after a few moments said (as is common):

“You’ve got your hands full!”

I smiled and we had a brief chat about how old the kids were, how cute Molly was, how much she liked milk. Then the lady asked, as she looked at Ben:

“Is he able to go to school?”

“Of course,” I said. “He goes to a brilliant school which he loves, don’t you Ben. We’re just here for an appointment.”

I could see the pity-look appearing so I was even more positive than normal about both Ben and his school. But as she was leaving she said:

“It’s so hard for these handicapped children. So hard for their families. I feel so sorry for them.”

It was one of those times when I felt like I didn’t have the words to be able to explain to her what our world is like, what Ben’s life is like, how we (try to) treat him. I have no idea how or why she uses a wheelchair, or how old she was when she first used it, but clearly she has lived a different experience.

It’s impossible in passing conversations like this to say all I want to, but later I felt so sad that she assumed Ben didn’t go to school, that his life is somehow unbearably hard, that it’s okay to talk about him like that right in front of him. Clearly being disabled in some way doesn’t automatically educate you in how to treat disabled kids in 2016 (or 2017).

I don’t want to minimise Ben’s challenges – loads of things are tough for him, almost nothing comes easily, and much is really unfair. And as a family we sometimes struggle when Ben’s disability makes things more complicated for all of us. But right now, as a seven year old boy, Ben is having a good life most of the time (and really, which child is having a good life all of the time? I mean every kid has to tidy up or eat Brussels sprouts or go home some of the time). He has loads of fun. He laughs most days. He is loved. He is learning. He is thriving.

By way of illustration, between his sixth and seventh birthdays Ben:

  • Had a baby sister: tolerated Molly’s wailing, put up with a third of our attention rather than half, learnt to deal with her grabbing onto his legs and pulling his hair. And then got a new baby cousin, Ralph, who also sometimes likes a bit of a wail.

  • Learnt to cycle his trike on his own: whizzed round in circles, racing Max and being unbelievably pleased with himself. He is still working on learning how to steer.
  • Made really noticeable progress with communication: starting to eyepoint using his communication book to tell us things, more reliably telling us yes and no.
  • Made huge progress on using his eyegaze computer: using it almost every day, knowing exactly what he wants to do, reliably choosing stories and then navigating through them like a pro, using communication software to create messages that were totally appropriate to the moment.
  • Went on holiday to Cornwall and France: first flight for three years, loads of swimming and beach time, hanging out with family and friends, getting tanned (and on one unfortunate occasion burned), getting a new passport.

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  • So many jokes with Max. So many lovely moments between these two boys.

  • Started staying at a children’s hospice for the occasional night, didn’t seem to be traumatised.
  • Moved house, again. Visited the building site to review progress and try out his new lift. Before he is eight he should have managed yet another move, his sixth since he was born.

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  • Began to be hoisted (rather than manually lifted) for most transfers between chairs and beds: coped much better with this than his mum.
  • Listened to lots and lots of audiobooks: his bluetooth speaker and ipod have become essentials wherever Ben goes, and there’s therefore been less screen time, developed a love for the books of David Walliams (except the highly emotional ending of Gangsta Granny) and late in the year Harry Potter.
  • Finished his first year at a new school: totally smashed it, participated in a whole school play in his walker, another year of loving learning, fascinated by the Great Fire of London.

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  • Was increasingly contented: Ben has spent the last year less fractious and generally happier. We spend less time flicking though films to find the one he is happy to watch, less energy trying to entertain him in public places so we can finish our lunch. This is probably connected to us having more (paid) help, and Ben getting older and more mature, helped – we think – by his surgery in 2015. As long as we explain what’s what is going on or is about to happen, Ben is noticeably more able to deal with unfamiliar or demanding environments. Long may it continue.

As we celebrate another year of Ben being our son, I am so very proud of this boy (and still so very sad that seven years ago he was still in hospital). He is such a joy to us all, so filled with patience and humour and determination. Happy New Year everyone – let’s all hope we come across more Bens, less pity and more positivity in 2017.

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Let him shout (at Trump or anyone else)

/ jess / Leave a comment

In the dim and not-so-distant past when it seemed impossible Obama would be replaced by a misogynist as the President of the USA, I watched a video of someone protesting at a Trump rally. The internet was full of footage of protestors at Trump rallies, and inevitably Trump insulting the protestors, but this was different. Different because the protestor was a 12 year old boy, who has cerebral palsy, who uses a wheelchair, who talks using a communication device.

JJ Holmes lives in America and had been following election coverage by using his iPad to search for Trump events, typing the words in using his nose. He knew Trump had mocked disabled people and eventually convinced his mum to take him to a Trump rally so he could protest against him. She warned him it might get ugly but he wanted to go anyway.

He pre-programmed phrases into his computer before they went, so that at the rally he could shout slogans like ‘Trump mocks the disabled’ and ‘Dump Trump’. He could play the messages through his communication device by pressing a button with his leg (there’s a brilliant video of him using the button here. As it wasn’t that loud, his mother and sister chanted along so he couldn’t be drowned out too easily.

After a bit the supporters surrounding them turned rowdy. Trump heckled JJ from the stage and told security to ‘Get them out’, and they were jostled out amidst JJ’s wheelchair being shoved and some pretty horrible things being said to all three of them.

So…

I mean obviously there’s much to be depressed about in this little anecdote, and that’s before we even knew Trump would become President.

But out of the murk I find inspiration: a 12 year old disabled boy convinced his mother to take him to a political rally to protest Trump’s attitude toward disabled people! He programmed chants in to his communication device!

I can’t tell you how proud I would be to have raised a son who was so politically aware and knew the power of protest. A boy who knew he was disabled and knew that was okay. Who knew that Donald J Trump (as JJ refers to him) was wrong to belittle disabled people. Who was brave enough to go to an adult event and make himself heard. Who was willing to be heckled and shoved to make his point.

I would be so proud of my son for learning to communicate with his nose and his leg, and having the patience and determination to make himself heard.

I am filled with admiration for a mother who took her 12 year old seriously, and facilitated his protest even though she knew it could get ugly. Who told journalists, ‘He’s not some puppet I wheeled in there. This was him – this was all him.’ I would be proud to be such a staunch ally. To treat communicating through a device as equal to talking (or shouting). And to have raised a daughter who wants to protest too.

I’m proud of a world where disabled people are helped by technology and supported to communicate when they can’t speak.

What the whole story relies on is JJ’s ability to shout (even if his device’s voice output isn’t quite loud enough to be heard above enthusiastic Trump supporters).

Ben has been using his eye-gaze computer for some time now and is beginning to create messages or questions within his communication software, or he uses the computer to read himself stories. We try to give him as much autonomy over the computer as possible (whilst hovering around, interfering, facilitating and modelling) so he can choose what he wants to do. When he chooses to use it for communication, we take the messages he says seriously.

By ‘says’ I mean that as he selects words within the communication software, they go in to a window at the top of the screen. When Ben goes to the ‘speak’ cell the computer says all the words out loud. When he is reading himself a story he selects the ‘speak’ cell and a paragraph of, for example, Mr Stink by David Walliams, will be read aloud by the computer.

But the loudest volume of Ben’s computer isn’t that loud. He can hear it as he is quite close, but you can’t really hear it if you are across the room, and you definitely can’t hear it if Max or Molly are squawking. So Ben’s speech and language therapist recently gave us a speaker to sit on top of the laptop, the volume of which can be controlled within the communication software. It can be turned up really loud, because if you are going to give an AAC user the opportunity to communicate as a neurotypical child would, you need to give them the ability to SHOUT if they want to. Or whisper. Or somewhere inbetween. Ben should be able to compete in volume with his siblings even if it’s not something I particularly relish the thought of.

In the same way that I ask Max many, many times a day to please not shout, Ben should be able to be loud and annoying. There is a temptation to think of children like Ben as ‘good’ because they are relatively quiet and controllable, but part of being a child (any child) is being disruptive and protesting and Ben should have as many opportunities to do that as he has to be compliant. If we get to the point of Ben purposefully turning up the volume of his computer and shouting at us all, and me having to tell him to turn it down, that will be a good problem to have.

Meanwhile, JJ’s recovery from the Trump rally ordeal was helped by him meeting Obama the following day who was every bit as friendly as you would expect, crouching to his level, listening to JJ’s messages and shaking his hand.

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(Holmes family photo taken from Washington Post website)

According to a Clinton official, when he was told he was about to meet Obama,  ‘JJ jumps out of his seat and erupts into cheer . . . his smile almost bursting out of his face. His body overcome by light, when just the day before it almost succumbed to hate.’

Let’s keep heading toward the light, people. Let’s confront bullies and prejudice. Let’s give all our kids the ability to communicate, to shout and to protest. Let’s take them seriously and hope that one day we might meet Obama.

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Playing for laughs (via eyegaze)

/ jess / 1 Comment

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I’ve got three kids! I don’t have much time to write blogs! And we have moved house, again, so things are as relaxed as usual round here.

In amongst the chaos and many, many boxes, Ben has been continuing to use his eyegaze computer. It travels to school with him every day and then he uses it at home for a mixture of entertainment and communication. Ben is building skills in using his eyes and navigating around software on a computer, and much of this is by playing games or other activities that he finds motivating. Like everything to do with kids learning something, anything, it’s best done through play as far as I can see.

We have various activities that he enjoys on his computer; his favourites are, unsurprisingly, stories. Some of which are ‘multiple choice’ where he has to pick the right word to continue the pre-programmed story. Others are computer equivalents of audiobooks where the entire text of a novel is on the computer and Ben can choose the story he wants, select the chapter, and then it is read out to him (in stilted computer voice, but he doesn’t seem to mind). Crucially, he has to keep selecting ‘Speak Paragraph’ in order for the story to continue, meaning that he has to engage consistently.

Ben’s current favourite book to read like this is Mr Stink by David Walliams. We have the actual book and read it to him frequently (actually I don’t, generally because I’m often preoccupied with a smaller child, but others do including my dad who assures me it is great and totes emosh). Other times Ben sits at the table reading it to himself via computer. It’s brilliant.

We hadn’t foreseen quite how fantastic the computer is for Ben and Max to use together. The laptop is touchscreen and so they can play games like, for example, Splat the Clown where Ben can splat using his eyes and Max using his finger. There aren’t many activities that they can do together like that, with total parity.

The current hit, however, is the most simple of all. By navigating through various screens within the PODD communication software Ben can get to a page which just has Yes, No and Don’t Know buttons.

Through trying to gauge Ben’s reliability of answering yes or no to questions (Ben doesn’t have a totally reliable yes or no, which is a work in progress for him and something about which I could – and may at some point – write an essay…), James invented a game of asking him sets of related yes/no questions, some of which are totally ridiculous. It is a good way of him practising giving us a clear yes or no when we know he knows the answer. He is definitely making progress on this. The thing we didn’t expect, and which is in danger of slightly undermining our carefully constructed strategy, is that Ben is now giving us the ‘wrong’ answer because it’s funny.

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Oh the laughs! The advent of this game has also coincided with Max hitting the zenith of his life so far where he can successfully make every member of our family laugh. Let me assure you that watching one of your kids make the other laugh is one of life’s pure joys. Watching Eli make BOTH of the other kids laugh is very, very lovely and makes my heart sing. All the feelings.

So it isn’t just James and me asking the yes/no questions, but Max too, and Ben bloody loves it.

Sometimes when Max is asking the questions Ben doesn’t answer. Then while we are waiting, he navigates out of that page which is autonomy in action, and is the physically disabled equivalent of a child wandering off because they have lost interest. He actually then went to a different yes/no page, through a different pathway in the software (which I didn’t know you could do), and then we continued. His ability to do this, without us mediating, is as pleasing to me as all the chuckling.

How we learn to talk (part two)

/ jess / 2 Comments

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Recently I complained that Max talks too much. I caught myself saying it twice, to two different people, in one week. Granted, James was away and I was really feeling the intensity of being the primary carer of all three kids, but what was I thinking?

Max is, in the nicest possible way, a chatterbox. Some days he will barely stop talking for hours at a time. It’s a charming mixture of questions, statements and analysis of the varying powers of superheroes.

Max was relatively slow to talk; he just said ‘oh no’ repeatedly for months and as he turned two the health visitor was a bit concerned about his lack of speech. I wasn’t worried. I had spent hours with speech and language therapists with Ben and so knew something of the basics of learning language. I could tell Max knew loads of words and understood what we told him. He made loads of sounds. I had a feeling he was just biding his time until he started talking.

At two-and-a-bit he started saying more words. Within a couple of weeks he was putting words together. And by the end of the month he had three-word sentences. It was like a miracle, like you could see his brain working and his body co-ordinating itself with an ease and fluidity that was beautiful to watch and hear.

Since Ben will probably never talk, I promised myself that I wouldn’t take it for granted. And I haven’t – there have been numerous occasions when we have been so very grateful for Max’s ability to tell us what the matter is when he’s ill or what happened at nursery that day.

Meanwhile there have been many times when we have been so very sad that Ben can’t tell us what the matter is, or what he has done that day. We find ways round it by school telling us each day what he has done, and recording messages on a button that goes to and fro with him, but it’s no substitute for independent communication and it’s a clunky way to converse.

We, and his school, are trying our best to give Ben the means to ‘talk’. We continue to model his PODD book with him (a communication book with lots of symbols to represent vocab), and give him access to his eyegaze computer regularly. When he returned to school after Easter, his carer/nanny printed out photos for him to take to school of all the things he had done over the holiday. I programmed new pages on his computer so he could use his eyes to describe what he had been up to (with photos) for his friends and teachers. (SO proud of myself for managing to navigate the software to do this, with only a couple of exasperating moments when I felt like chucking the computer out the window).

Ben loved all of it – he enjoyed showing people photos of Max squashing him in the park, and telling them about our easter egg hunt.

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But these things are manipulated by us. We choose which photos to include and which anecdotes to tell. Ben can’t tell people what HE wants to about his holiday he can only share one of the moments we chose to include. Who knows whether we have included the bits he most enjoyed? Yesterday we were talking about when we all visited an outdoor exhibition of massive light sculptures and Max’s best, most important memory was of the Smarties Grandpa gave him, rather than any of the sculptures. Kids experience the world differently to adults, and often remember the bits we think are incidental.

Or we (adults) don’t realise what kids want to do. When Max is climbing a tree, Ben will make complaining noises until we ask him if he wants to climb the tree? He then looks at the ‘Yes’ symbol on the arm of his wheelchair, and so we take him out and lift him up into the branches. A year ago he wouldn’t have been able to communicate this clearly something we hadn’t thought of. Or perhaps we weren’t able to interpret what he was trying to tell us.

We continue to hope we can give Ben the means to express what HE wants to say, rather than what we think he wants to say, and he is making progress with the ways he has available.

Each week at school Ben helps create a sentence and they work on the sentence each day, putting the words in the right order. On one of the first days back at school this term, staff in Ben’s classroom navigated him to the Places page of his PODD book. He had to choose the place to complete the sentence ‘I went to the …’ and through careful yes/no answers as he worked his way through the various symbols with an assistant he chose Library: I went to the library.*

School wondered if he really meant library. We hadn’t mentioned going to the library in our various messages to school. Maybe he was confused, or hadn’t really meant library. After all, his communication can be hard to interpret.

But HE HAD GONE TO THE LIBRARY. The day before! So he had told his class something we hadn’t!

Before Max started talking it was all in his head, he just had to work out how to say it all so we would understand. Ben clearly has so much to say, but no reliable way to say it. In some ways this makes me sad. In many ways it makes me anxious – it is our job (with various professionals) to help him find ways to talk to us and I feel the weight of the responsibility.

But mainly I feel hopeful. Ben has started to use the communication systems we are providing and has begun to talk independently. It will take time, but he’s making progress. He went to the library!

How we learn to talk – part one is here

* Note how many symbols there are on this page, which is one of many in the PODD book. Imagine the skill needed to identify which symbol you want on that page and then communicate it to the person you are talking to using only your eyes. Imagine if you got distracted or confused midway through and needed to start again.

Five years old

/ jess / 7 Comments

Ben has just turned five.

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A birthday means the anniversary of his birth, which was a mixed bag.

But loads of good things have happened since! Each year we make a list of what Ben has got up to over the previous 12 months; achievements noted, developments made and skills gained. Parents of disabled children often talk about ‘inchstones’ rather than milestones. Early on, it became clear that the gross motor skill developments that characterise a typical child’s life were going to be hard for Ben so we had to adjust our expectations and targets accordingly, but success rewards the patient and if you look in the right places there are wonderful things to be found.

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In the year between his fourth and fifth birthdays Ben has done a lot, including:

  • left nursery, started school full-time (settling in brilliantly)
  • learnt to enjoy the affections of his brother and realised Max can be funny
  • used an eye-gaze computer regularly, playing lots of games
  • learnt to look at Yes and No symbols regularly
  • stopped having any formula milk, eating only home-made food
  • adapted brilliantly to having a night carer
  • discovered his love of the hot tub
  • started getting the bus to school
  • learnt loads of letters
  • reliably recognised the numbers 1-10
  • starting riding his trike
  • met Michael Rosen!

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Ben has really thrived over the last year – he has been healthier than ever and had a lot of fun. We were looking forward to celebrating him turning five with a tea party and a family video of the past year’s best bits…

… and then he really pulled it out the bag!

We have known for a while that Ben recognises most letters and Granny has been diligently teaching him to read. His school has also been working on phonics with him and recently he has been using the eyegaze computer in his classroom to do some work with letters. The day before his fifth birthday, Ben came home with this message from his teacher:

‘Ben used his eye gaze [computer] to independently word build. I asked him to spell out bat and several other ‘-at’ words at the end and he did so no problem!’

If that isn’t a bloody milestone, I don’t know what is. Love that clever boy.

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