Our AAC Journey - Moving Right Along - October 2, 2012

First, my kid rocks at using a talker when she's at the therapist's office.


Sorry the video is a wonky size - I'll try to fix that sometime in the future.

Her therapist brought her out to us and had her ask for juice with her talker (well, the therapist's talker - I think that's a VL1 and my kid will have a VL2). If you can't hear it, it says "Drink" and then "Juice." Notice that while she needs a tiny bit of wrist support, she needs no guidance to find those buttons. Every time I watch this, I get chills - and further excited about how much more she'll be able to tell us soon. And then we had to model for her by answering using the talker and as you can hear, I didn't know what I was doing at all - so mama has to learn too. And I CANNOT WAIT. (Also, when she gets her very own talker, it will sound more like a little girl's voice, haha.)

Second, at school, she's using a very very very simple AAC device and is putting together two and three-word sentences consistently. Because she's a genius, obviously.

Third, this week after a few follow-up phone calls (I was procrastinating making one more and figured I'd do it tomorrow), I received in the mail the notification from Funding Source #1 that yes, they will in fact cover her talker! (Of course there's the whole "after deductibles and co-pays and whatever else we feel like saying you have to do" part of that letter, and they denied coverage on the carrying case, but I was expecting a full-on denial from FS#1 for various reasons, some obvious and some not so much, so even THIS was exciting!). Meanwhile, I was told by PRC last week that Funding Source #2 had already given its pre-approval. So it's covered - the funding step is OVER.

And that means HER DEVICE WILL HOPEFULLY SHIP SOON! (Next phone call today should shed some light on that bit.)

ETA: And indeed I have the confirmation emails now and it should ship by the END OF THIS WEEK!!!!

OMG OMG OMG!

Everything is about to change for my daughter. And for the rest of us too.

Stay tuned!