Friday, June 5, 2009

Our appointment with Susan

Our appointment with Susan Norwell was amazing! She totally gets our girls with Rett Syndrome. I heard her speak at last year's conference and had been working on getting an appointment for Brooklyn and I am so glad I did! Brooklyn loved her!
She tried various ways of communication with Brooklyn. She did some work with a switch, allowing Brooklyn to do some scanning on the computer - in the picture below Brooklyn was using her cheek to activate the switch and make her choice. Susan gave us some great sites that we can use with Brooklyn on her computer too!
Brooklyn enjoyed reading books the Susan too - I see some book making projects in my near future:) Susan used a Tango as well while they were reading, to give Brooklyn the opportunity to say things like "that's yucky" "cool" "splish, splash, splish." (It was a book about animals getting in the mud!)She was really impressed at how well Brooklyn was tracking each word on the page.

Here is Brooklyn working with Susan on the Tango. She would look at her choice on the machine and Susan would hit it for her.It was awesome to hear Brooklyn choose "maybe", "I do not like that", "cool!" and she even told Susan "I am mad" at one point - which was awesome! It gave her a voice to tell us what she was feeling. More than yes or no, which is amazing - her little face just lit up....it was like "finally you guys are starting to get it!"
We look forward to working with Susan more and of course we look forward to all the fun we are going to have with Brooklyn! Nothing like a mom that is excited to hear her daughter say "I am mad at you!".......I'll take it!!! More pictures and video to come, I promise!!!!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Always good to hear our daughters thoughts and see the connection when they realize that we are finally getting it. I am excited for you and Brooklyn.

Girl Power 2 Cure said...

Woohoo! Love this! I would love to get Sarah in to see her! Lucky duck! :-)

Vanessa {Bloom Right Here!} said...

Yay! How exciting! I really believe that if we could find a way for Martilee to communicate that we would be amazed at what she had to "say".

Stacy said...

That is so awesome!!! So glad your apt went well. How are you and Charlie feeling. Chris told me all about Charlie:( Sorry to hear about everything. Hopefully the medicine will start helping. How is your pregnancy going??

The MacDonald Family said...

Oh I have chills just thinking about your visit!! I'm so glad it was so very successful, makes the waiting so worth it! Yes, our girls have so much to say and I can see it in Annie's eyes too when we finally "get it" - they are talking, we need to learn their language!! Hugs!!

Abbysworld said...

I wanted to thank you so much for calling today Kelly. It helped me so much. And the last picture of Brooklyn looking at you says everything!

Rebecca said...

sounds amazing!!! Maybe Brooklyn will be featured in next years conference!!

Kelly said...

What a blessing!