Teresa’s been working with a marker board to help facilitate Patty’s communication. Teresa voices the alphabet—letter by letter—and Patty spells the message.In this conversation, Patty is telling Teresa about her sister Katty and how she was caught by her father after sneaking out without permission. Here’s Teresa’s description:
“It’s actually a very funny conversation. Apparently, Katty snuck out and was caught by (her father)—I think she was riding around with her friends. If you look at the board you’ll see that Patty spelled DAD: DED, but that was my error not going slowly enough when I said the vowels A–E–I–O–U and Y. Patty confirmed most letters using the YES switch with the new spandex loop—that worked beautifully, I never had to adjust the switch once it was placed in the correct position.”
Write On!
I often compare spelling with Patty to reading a personalized liscense plate while speeding down the freeway. Sometimes I don’t get her meaning until after I arrive home. Patty’s injury occured at the age of seventeen when text messaging was ubiquitous in her world. That’s both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that Patty is extremely comfortable with abbreviations and phonetic pronunciations of words, which shortens the time it takes for her to “text” her thoughts. The curse is that sometimes those letter combinations aren’t as obvious to adults who may be assessing her skill level, combinations that may be readily recognized to her peers. It can be an arduous, time consuming process to text with Patty–but it is by far the best illumination of her concerns, her world, her personality–unlike the biased questions of those who may be asking her for simple “yes” and “no” answers.