The Paraphernalia

Earlier today, I was thinking of all of the paraphernalia that has come through our house because of Matthew-- Kinesio tape to help correct the way he laid his hands when he was a newborn, the helmet to protect his little head after craniosynostosis surgery, the braces for his feet to help him stand before he could walk, and the walker that helped him with his first steps.  All of these things have come and gone and are now distant memories in our past.  They were point-in-time tools to help Matthew get to where he needed to go.

I am hoping that is what the iPad is--  a point in time piece of equipment that has come into our house for a particular need (help Matthew communicate) that will one day be a distant memory (as he talks our ear off, I pray). 

We are very thankful for our friends, Matt and Becca, whose iPad made this a reasonable experiment instead of an outlandish one.  We have a long way to go before Matthew is proficient at the communication application, but we are excited about the prospect.  It is a very cool technology that has given many kids a 'voice'.  (Click here to watch a long, but very good 60 Minutes piece about the tool.  It made me cry.)

In addition to the application, we have increased our emphasis on sign.  With that, Matthew has been signing a bit more, telling me many times this week that "I go" (verbal) to "school" (signed).  Pretty awesome.  And since we have been concentrating on the total communication framework, we feel as though Matthew has stepped his verbalization up a notch.  We half jokingly say that if we knew shelling out the $225 dollars on the iPad application was all it would take, we would have done it a long time ago! 

I hope and pray this is all just a point in time and one day, I'll look back and wonder why I was so worried.  I have hope because it has happened just that way with so many things!

Matthew LOVES Jackson,
and doesn't have to say it in words.