Welcome to myEZvoice.
I am no speech pathologist, or expert of any kind. I am just the father of an amazing nonverbal son, who for 16 years has found the patience, grace and love to talk to the world with his eyes, with his smile and with this amazingly strong energy he carries inside him like a beacon of light.
So when I saw that light starting to dim, I asked his mother “when was the last time you saw any real progress?” We agreed. It had been too long.
Desperate to reignite that amazing, radiant light inside him, I asked his mom to let me home school him for one year. I promised he would go back to school. But we needed to try something, anything different.
I saw the pain in his face every time I’d ask him to navigate in and out of dozens of screens just to piece together a simple sentence. I asked myself, what if I were him, carrying this iPad everywhere I go just to say hello and answer questions. The same iPad with the same software he’d been using since elementary school. … I’d hate it. I’d refuse to use it.
And here I was asking my son to do that very thing, every day of his life.
It was in that moment, I decided to stop asking my son to meet the world where it demands him to be, and instead, I decided to meet him – right where he stands.
We put away the bulky iPad and, together, we built something new. Something that fits in his pocket, something where he could press a single button and say an entire phrase.
It’s pretty amazing what can happen when you stop forcing someone into a world that doesn’t understand them and step into their world instead.
