Maddie Sheets
Hello,
My daughter, Maddie, has Cerebral Palsy and has little to no use of her limbs and does not verbalize. She is ten years old and operates a power wheel chair with her head motion and speaks with the Vanguard (we call it her "VG") and uses a TrackerTM (headpointing system). As anyone knows or could imagine, not being able to run, play or use their hands is a huge handicap but not speaking can be the most frustrating debility. Maddie is such a very fun loving and active little girl. It is heart breaking to see her so contained in her disabilities.
I wanted to express our appreciation for the great communication device Prentke Romich has put together in the Vanguard.
We originally purchased the product of another augmentative and alternative (AAC) manufacturer in 2002, which continuously had problems. After numerous lock ups and software upgrades in less than two years, not to mention a board replacement to increase memory, Maddie's teachers were ready to throw it against the wall as each time they painfully setup a new page it locked and lost its memory before I could get it backed up.
After five years and some research, we began to focus on the Vanguard and started speaking with Carla Aubrey, our Regional Consultant with PRC. Carla was cautious in setting Maddie up with the PRC device as the language was very different from Maddie's first communication device. It really didn't matter as Maddie was never able to learn the language in the other company's device. We got a loaner Vanguard for two weeks from Carla and Maddie took off using the reflective Tracker 'dot' on her forehead.
I came home from work the first day after she had been using it and she squealed as she does when she is totally excited and hollered for me over and over. She then played out what she wanted ten times. She said, "Daddy, will you please play tic-tac-toe with me. Please Daddy, please." Now, understand that all she had really done before on her first AAC device was a few words. I was so proud of her and she was so happy.
Maddie now has her Vanguard and it has absolutely never locked up or gone crazy. Her teachers and therapist are really glad for the Vanguard and appreciate the Unity language system and not having to create pages or get lost in the ambiguous system directories.
Thank you for a great product, sales support, and training.
Ladd Sheets
Kilgore, TX