The-Courier-recoveringnoah

I did it! I realized what I can write about on Works-for-me-Wednesdays.... THERAPY STUFF.

I'm a terrible cook, terrible cleaner, have no real skill in life except for being a stupendous collector of useless trivia... but I sure know my therapy stuff.

OT, PT, Speech Therapy, ABA, Sensory Integration, Auditory Integration, Learning Disabilities, Cerebral Palsy, Autism, Autism, Autism... it's my life. My kids have gone through more therapists than you can possibly imagine and I've mentally filed every single tip and tidbit I've ever learned... and I even came up with some of my own.

So there ya have it. I'll give therapy tips on Wednesday. And here's my first one...

If you have a nonverbal child then you know how difficult it is to communicate with him/her. Not only is our Noah completely nonverbal, but he has cerebral palsy, too - which makes it nearly impossible for him to learn sign language. Plus, he stims a lot by flapping his hands and doing odd little twisty things with his fingers... so sign is out of the question.

Traditional Pecs are out of the question, too. (PECS stands for Picture Exchange System, where a child can go through a book of pictures or pictures velcroed to the fridge, etc, and bring you the picture to show what he wants). But... Noah eats the pictures, so PECS are a no go.

Our biggest problem is that we are trying to Potty-Train and we're having a hard time getting Noah to signal to us when he needs to go. He is completely dependent on us for dressing and undressing - basically all of his personal needs. We have to figure out a way for him to tell us when he needs to go the bathroom.

I was looking through a catalog at his OT clinic a few months ago and came across these....

You attach it to the wall and put a picture on it and record a 20 second message. This way, the child can tell you if he's thirsty, hungry, needs to go to the potty - whatever you want. Do you know much they start at???

$66.95!!!!

Isn't that nuts??

So, I went to CVS and found some clearanced voice recording photo frames on clearance for...

$7 bucks!!

I don't have an actual picture of what we've done because I'm without a camera right now, but we took two frames and put a picture of a toilet in each frame and then recorded "I need to go potty."

Now, technically, Noah's 7 and is too old for the phrase "go potty", but should he learn to speak, "potty" is easier to say than "toilet", so that's why we use it.

We have one picture frame on the back of the toilet and we press it whenever we take him to the bathroom.

We have the other velcroed to the fridge for a central location point in case he has an accident and we push the button "I need to go potty" and then take him to the bathroom where we push the button again.

It's very new, but we're confident he'll get the hang of it. And if not, hey, we're only out $14 bucks for two photo frames, instead of $130.

Works for me!