Happy National Speech-Language-Hearing Month! | Explore Support & Services for SLPs
Happy National Speech-Language-Hearing Month! | Explore Support & Services for SLPs
Welcome back to ableFamilies in Real Life, where we celebrate the everyday communication wins of families across the country. This month, meet Charity and her son Isaiah, a twelve-year-old from Colorado, who has spent the past three years building his voice with the QuickTalker Freestyle. In the Ogunwo house, one family motto sets the tone for the whole journey: “Don’t stress, we are in God’s hands.”
Isaiah is twelve, autistic, and nonverbal, and he is also one of the most social people in his family. He communicates with everything he has: vocalizing, signing, grunts, taps, touches, and his QuickTalker Freestyle. He understands everything going on around him, though he does not always let on right away. At home he has his mom Charity, his dad Ade, and his little brother Jedi, who is eight, and the whole crew loves movies, trips to We Rock the Spectrum, and getting out in the community where there are new friends to meet.
Isaiah is a serious Sonic fan, and Sonic, Shadow, and Eggman turn up all over his QuickTalker Freestyle. Charity has made stories with him about his favorite characters, and when Isaiah gets the chance, he heads to the virtual scenes in his groups section to tell brand new friends fun facts about them. The family also built him a characters button inside his people folder so he can announce exactly who he is into at the moment.
Communication in this house is a group effort. Everyone talks to each other, and after twelve years together the family can usually read what Isaiah is telling them, so their current goal is leaning on the QuickTalker Freestyle more at home and out at events, and reminding Jedi that his big brother can answer for himself. The device already travels with Isaiah to ABA, speech, OT, PT, music, and church, and Charity knows that modeling and repetition are what will make it feel easier for Isaiah to use with people who do not know him personally.
At home, the family started small and specific: does Isaiah want to eat, what does he want to eat, what does he want to watch, and on which device. The biggest lesson so far has been patience. Isaiah can be stubborn, so his family waits. They wait when they know he knows the answer, and they wait for him to copy them when they model something new. Their one real early challenge had nothing to do with Isaiah: the family are Android users, so the QuickTalker Freestyle is the only Apple device in the house. Once they figured out how to back up his vocabulary with Dropbox, they were set.
Charity’s favorite QuickTalker Freestyle moment started as a conversation that did not include Isaiah at all. Jedi goes to Isaiah’s ABA center as a peer mentor on days he does not have school, and Charity was asking him which therapist the boys had at a certain time of day. Jedi could not remember. Isaiah, listening from another part of the house, walked over, picked up his talker, and told his mom the therapist’s name. Jedi’s response said it all: “That’s right!”
“That made my heart happy,” Charity says. Less frustration on everyone’s part is the biggest change she has seen, and there is a particular look she watches for now. When the family finally understands something Isaiah has said with his device, relief crosses his face.
Charity’s advice for families just getting started begins with permission to be imperfect. It is okay to make mistakes when you are modeling vocabulary on your child’s device, and it is just as important to tell your child that it is okay for them to make mistakes too. “We are constantly learning something new,” she says. “That’s how we grow!” On the practical side, she has two reminders: back up your vocabulary files, and stay on top of your system updates, because some really cool button changes show up every once in a while.
The family’s next goal is a familiar one for a lot of parents: remembering to grab the QuickTalker Freestyle on the way out the door in the morning, and getting it out in the community during hands-on activities. As Charity puts it, they will eventually get there. In the meantime, the Ogunwos are doing what they have always done, staying patient, staying close, and trusting their motto: don’t stress, we are in God’s hands.
Stay tuned for more real-life stories from ableFamilies across the country. Want to share your family’s journey or have a question? Our Parent Enthusiasts are here for you. You can also explore additional resources, guidance, and community connections on our SupportHub.