College Class Presentation

I am going to start by telling a little about myself and how it was before I had an AAC device. Then I will talk about how it is like using a communication device and what kind of things they can do to help people like myself to be more independent. Finally, since this is an education class, I will finish by sharing some of my educational experiences.

I am from Ravenna, Ohio. I attended Cleveland State University and received a bachelor's degree in computer science. Currently I am working for the Prentke Romich Company. On the weekends I am a Remote Troubleshooter. I am one of the people you would talk to if you need technical assistance after the company is closed. About two years ago I started a new job with PRC during the week. I am working in the Research and Development department. I am beta testing new communication devices and trying to recreate problems that other users are having so that we can figure out how to fix them.

Now I want to talk about my communication. It wasn't easy to communicate before I had an AAC electronic communication device but I did my best. When I got my Liberator, my first PRC communication device, in 1993 I had no idea what Minspeak was. I just knew people said it would make me talk faster. For those of you that don’t know, Minspeak is a system of icons that I use to form words and words into sentences. Just for an example, the word wheelchair is stored under a three icon sequence. So I don’t have to spell the word wheelchair, I just have to remember the icon sequence. If anybody wants to know more about Minspeak just ask during the question and answer period.

Well, at that point in time I just had a manual Bliss board so anything would be faster. With the Bliss board I had to point to individual words and letters and the person I was talking to had to read everything I pointed to. But I did try to use a device called an Epson Speech Pac during high school and part of college but it ended up in the closet because the speech output sounded like crap. Also it wasn’t easy to use because I had to spell every letter of every word. It was more efficient for me to use my trusty Bliss board. Well, I got tired of communicating like this and that was when I got the Liberator.

I have to admit it was quite overwhelming seeing all of these icons in front of me at first. But my sister, roommate and I made the best of it. I was 23 years old and in college, so guess what the first word I learned the icon sequence was. Come on guess. The people who said beer are correct. Now can you guess the second icon sequence I wanted to learn after beer? It was bathroom. Obviously I got over the feeling of being overwhelmed and realized what an AAC device could do for me.

Of course first and foremost a communication device enables me to communicate easily and freely. Well except in the shower. Unfortunately the ECO isn't waterproof. Yet. Anyway, I can say anything I want to anybody I want at any time. However, the person I am trying to talk to needs to be patient because it takes me longer to talk. To my surprise this happens a lot with my remote troubleshooting job. I even say I am speaking with a device please don't hang up. But sometimes that doesn't even work. Many times people will say they want to talk to a real person instead of talking to me. That is very hurtful to me and my usual response goes something like this. I am a real person. Isn’t the person using the device you are calling about a real person? The person’s usual response on the other end is hanging up on me.

Another thing not so wise people think is a Prentke Romich Company created this amazing robot that has the ability to answer and to ask questions spontaneously. Even really stupid questions like my daughters Vantage fell into the fish tank what should I do. Or my son’s device was dropped on the cement and the screen cracked, do I need to send it in to get fixed. I hate to say this most of these stupid people are speech-language pathologist. I don’t want to offend anybody here but I am just telling you my real life experiences. I think you guys as special education teachers have to work with the family and the speech-language pathologist to figure out the communication needs of a student with a communication disability. It takes a team effort. But what I am really trying to say here is I have this wonderful communication device and please have patience and give me time to use it.

Although, like I already said, the main purpose of all Prentke Romich devices is communication, they also do some amazing things to help people with disabilities to be more independent. First of all you can program infrared remote control commands into the devices. That means you can program remote controls from a TV, DVD player, stereo, and cable box into the device. This enables the user to operate entertainment equipment from their device. Sometimes when I go to somebody’s house and they have the same kind of TV as I have I can control their TV without them knowing it. This is a very fun thing to do. They can’t figure out why the channel keeps changing or why it keeps getting louder and louder. I just sit there and laugh to myself. This is just a side note but it is important to some users, like me. Since video game systems like Play Station and X Box have infrared controllers, it is possible to program the controllers into the devices. So I am able to play video games like everybody else. However, of course I can't react as fast as a person using the regular controllers. Another cool feature that could be added on our devices is a built in cell phone. I can make and receive calls directly from my echo. This opens up a whole new world for people like me to use technology everybody else uses. The last thing I am going to say about echo is maybe the most important. The echo is an actual laptop computer. So I can go on the internet, check my e-mail, and play games.

I am going to finish by telling you about what it was like when I was in school and college. Now remember I am 40 years old and an old fart. So a lot has changed for the better since then. From kindergarten through middle school I went to a school just for the disabled called Sun Beam. Then I went to Valley Forge High School which is a regular high school. I was totally mainstreamed but they did have aides and a resource teacher to help with my personal needs and taking tests. Finally I ended up at Cleveland State, where I majored in Computer Science and minored in partying.

When I was at Sun Beam I was very fortunate to have a Speech Therapist who saw my potential and taught me how to express my needs when taking a test as well as how to stick up for my rights. One of the basic things I needed when taking test was somebody to write for me. When I took multiple choice tests it was easier and faster for me to just point to the answer and somebody marked it, than for me recording my answers on a typewriter or a computer. Believe it or not, the same held true for written and math tests because if the person knew me well enough they could predict what I am going to say. However, that could backfire when you get accused of cheating. When I was about 10 and I had a certain old teacher that was set in her ways and she thought she was never wrong. For some reason she didn't think very much of my intelligence. Maybe it was because she stuck me in front of a typewriter facing the wall for most of the school year doing pages in workbooks. Of course I was bored and somewhat lonely so I didn't do a lot of work. At that time we had a yearly academic assessment and that year my test scores were very high. They were so high they were the highest in the class and the teacher accused the aide that was recording my answers of marking the right answers because she thought I wasn't that smart. Well, my mom happened to know the aide well and of course she knew how smart I was so my mom gave the teacher the riot act.

Fortunately the next year I had a different teacher that believed in me and I excelled in her class and then on because the teachers put me among the other students, my friends, and generally had somebody write for me when doing class work and taking tests. I did use a typewriter on occasion after that but the teachers realized I learned best when I could interact with my peers. This was an example of the assessment scores were accurate but the teacher underestimated my intelligence. By the time I was 14 and in the eighth grade I was reading at the upper seventh grade level and I was doing algebra. I can't say that was the same for most of my quote typical peers. But I still had an assessment test at the end of the year. Throughout the eighth grade I had A's and B's and doing on grade level work. I don't understand why teachers focused more on the assessment results instead of the student's work during the year. Fortunately this never happened but I would have thought it would have been unfair to base my intelligence on a three hour test if on that particular day I wasn't feeling well or the person writing for me didn't understand me. However, I can't say that is true nowadays.

Before I turn it over to Amy I would like to answer your questions. Although I know this is an education class I don't want to limit the questions to education. Because I think it is very important to get to know a student or client with communication difficulties so they don't feel pushea Together #bbjvj*/$d under the rug. Hopefully the student has an effective way of communication first of all. If that is the case, just ask them about sports, girlfriends or boyfriends, T V shows, or whatever they did on the weekend. I have been doing this for over fifteen years now so I have been asks some pretty weird questions. So now I am opening up myself to the firing squat, ask anything.s 0's pr)