Anyone interested in teaching non-verbal children to comunicate via pointing at a letterboard

[yurt1]

The strangeson website has published a (free- hoorah) manual on teaching the method. You need to go to 'Portia's thoughts on pointing' in the left hand menu and it's yours to download.

oh whoops you have to be a member to read it. It's free to join, definitely worth looking at if your child is non-verbal.

before I try and join, can it work with eye pointing?

It's written mainly for children with severe autism & supposed learning difficulties BUT - children with severe autism often have huge problems responding on demand on time, and it talks a lot about getting the gaze in the correct place etc. I suspect that there'll be a lot of info there that is relevant to your dd. (There are some children mentioned in the forums with cp iirc).

I suspect you'd find the bits about hidden intelligence interesting as well. The children this is aimed at are commonly believed to have severe learning difficulties. In fact the problem is often that assumption means they've never been taught.

It wont be strictly relevant to you, but it would probably be worth registering, especially as its all free.

Is this similar to facilitated communication, were someone guides the user's arm/hand to help them point to the letters? I know that needs a lot of training and tests need to be done to ensure the person helping isn't subconscioulsy imposing their own thoughts on the communicating person, but I think it can help.

will go and look Yurt. Trying all sorts of things to get communication going with dd that don't rely on what she can't do.

It's based more on the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) than facilitated communication. But also FC, and also Marion Blank's reading program. Have a look at the Halo website as well for RPM. Another great website.

A lot of FC practitioners promote independence as well. So the FC institute for example talks about fading support asap. The stuff that Research Autism has written about FC makes me rather mad (just because, although the numbers may be small, there are people who have used FC initially then moved onto independent typing but have said very clearly that they needed support initially- Research Autism shouldn't just ignore their existence).

I'm very excited about it. DS1 is responding well (and sometimes independently), but we're lost a bit, so this manual is excellent timing. Not often that we can access stuff like it for free either.

TBH the strangeson website is the one most interested in independent pointing. Partly I think because the founder thinks the method won't be taken seriously unless independent tyoing is achieved. Certainly her son can now type independently.

I hope it has someting in there for you needmorecoffee. It may even just introduce you to some 'names' who have ideas (& don't immediately write someone off). I do know how it feels to read stuff that your child couldn't begin to access.