Sef Zeleznik
I am Thankful for my Orange Gadget (ECO)
We spent my sabbatical year in California and had the opportunity to go to all of the great open labs put on by a place called the Bridge School. It's an AAC immersion school for kids with CP. The Bridge School has access to the latest, greatest speech-generating devices from all companies. We tried them all out -- Dynavoxes, Tango! and the range of PRC systems. We went to a lot of helpful workshops on core and fringe vocabulary and vocabulary selection in general.
When we first saw PRC's Unity, it gave us a headache, whereas some of the other languages didn't. As we learned more, though, we realized that the headache was precisely because Unity is a different language, a language designed with efficiency and generative capacity in mind, whereas the others were in English. Thus, the headache. We were learning a foreign language.
We wanted Sef to have as much generative, creative capacity with his language as possible. We wanted a language that would allow him to rely on motor memory (We don't want someone to fine tune our own computer keyboard for every activity!). We wanted the motor memory for speed in general, also because his CP and vision difficulties mean that the motor memory can make complex expression possible.
We liked the growth potential of Unity. He can move to more and more complicated versions of the language that will build directly on the motor memory and other skills he's developing with the language.
We liked the tremendous reliance on active and evaluative words relevant to any context. We thought that emphasis would give Sef a chance not just to make choices, but to express himself and set agendas to change his world and to change how the world sees and hears him. It has.
Before we left California, we discussed our options with all of Sef's professional team. Given all of our goals and challenges, they couldn't imagine recommending anything other than PRC for him.
Nancy Burns
Mother of Sef
