Download/Print

Meet Ben

Five-year-old Benjamin Wohl lives in Torrance, California with his parents, David and Jane, an older brother, Jonathan, two cats, and a frog.

Ben was born with an Arnold-Chiari malformation, which was corrected by surgery when he was a toddler, but left him with autistic characteristics, including little or no vocalization. He has poor bilateral coordination, poor motor planning skills, and a medical history including hypotonia, or low muscle tone. Because of oral motor issues, Ben is primarily fed via g-tube.

Ben is expected to begin kindergarten in fall 2009. Because of recent advances in his expressive communication skills, Ben’s family and clinician hope that he will spend time in mainstream as well as special needs classrooms. It’s a possibility his mother Jane says didn’t exist before he began using his augmented and alternative communication (AAC) device from PRC. “Just a year ago, we were told Ben showed ‘insufficient communicative intent.’ Now mainstreaming is a real possibility. That’s very powerful.”