Visual aids/child's own camera. (receptive language delay)

[lingle]

Hello all.

Has anyone tried giving their language delayed visual learner his or her own camera? I saw a few children's cameras advertised when looking for Christmas presents. The children now both use my digital camera so much that they are in the process of breaking it. If no one here has tried it I will post on a more general board.

I had a more positive parents' evening about DS2 (3.6, receptive language delay) last night. The main thing the nursery teacher said was that the NHS SALT attended nursery last month to train them all on visual aids. Consequently they are now doing a visual timetable with DS2 every morning. As a result, they have noticed a big drop in anxiety and much greater willingness to do the activities he previously avoided (water/sand - previously wrongly ascribed to being tactile defensive). NHS SALT returned to nursery this morning and called me today to say the visual aids were making "such a difference" and will help me diversify/enhance my own visuals (mainly photos) when I see her next week.

So all is forgiven, NHS SALT as she has now actually been of help. DS2 is so withdrawn at nursery so it is great to see some progress in my area of greatest concern.

I would love to hear of more experiences and examples of success in using the visual aids as this is a challenging area for me.

I will follow this thread as I had a very positive meeting with a new NHS SALT this morning and she is pleased with his progress - even saying that his language development is following a similar line of progression to a normal child's but just much more slowly. However she did mention that visuals will be used at school so he needs to get more used to them. It's hard for us to pin point an exact area where visuals would help us though I can see that in a school setting they might work very well. Anyway, she is coming out to the house next week to discuss it in more detail. DS1 loves shop logos and has a collector's album of them. Maybe I could expand these into something useful?

We have boards round the house with symbols + photos on as well as folders and book. Used for choice or commenting. Although tbh ds1 will use anything that's within reach (so for example last week he signed cat, brought be a cat PECS and brought me a stone with a cat painted on it).

We've just bought one of those small video cameras for ds1 (the square ones, 30 odd quid from Argos) which he loves but gets very cross with.

We bought a polaroid instant camera for DS2 as he needed 'instant'.
It was a fantastic help especially the ones of home and his bedroom because he took them as he saw them and was able to presentthem to me when we were out and he needed to go home or for me to offer his bedroom when he was stressed.

We also took them on hols to reassure him when we were going home

Really useful. And helped with news for school too

Actually ds1 sat for 30 - 40 minutes on the computer yesterday looking at photos (this is completely unheard of- a) using the computer independently and b) the length of time.

I have been trying to think whether there's a way to put the photos somewhere high tech (and cheapish) for him to look at.

mrsturnip - how high tech would it have to be? you can get very small cheap photo display cubes (HSM branded) for under a tenner. Or a very cheap portable digital photo frame for £20-£30. Or a linux net book for under £200.

www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10403859

link to the digital picture display cube.

It mainly needs to be very non-frustrating to use. If it wasn't so expensive I'd let him try my itouch. - I was trying to think of a way that he could get easy access to a whole bunch of photos because he uses them so much to communicate now (about things as well as for things).

this thread has spurred me on to get DS the cheap HSM little cube this weekend, I will trial it and report back!

You can get digital photo key rings but I don't know how good the resolution is

www.digitalpictureframestore.co.uk/product_details.asp?id=43&product=Digital%20Photo%20Keyring%20-%2 0Black

We got ds a Kodak easy share camera with printing port for ds (9) when it was half price ( old model). However his previous camera did not last long! It has no flexibility (can't be upgraded only takes matching camera, only costly heat print paper cartridges etc) but that simplicity is useful for ds. The printer has one button! Ds can print out his favorite pictures (no editing) for his album and I can stick them on his charts. He has a fairly robust portable dvd machine (£120 I think) that will take the camera sd card to view the photos, but he needs help at the moment.
We are getting on well with a pictorial 'getting ready for school' chart.

THanks. Im actually going to start by printing out photos onto a contact sheet I think and putting them in a ringbinder - he then has loads he can access really easily by pointing. We have photos everywhere at the moment he keeps raiding all the albums and boxes and studying them really closely.

portable dvd an idea too, but I think it might have too many buttons for him (the ones we have).

I meant to get one of those keyrings for his stocking, but forgot, will try one out though....

Bumping this for pagwatch.

Pagwatch, I look up digital polaroid cameras before Christmas. At the time, there didn't seem any available in the UK. Could I ask which one you got?

Ease of use is so key for these technical devices. We have the talking photo album - but DS2 naturally wants to press the buttons himself and tends to accidentally put pressure on a different button, triggering a different voice-over to the one intended.