Valente McCrady is a bright, happy girl who loves to spend time with her friends, play games, and talk - a lot! She is a six year old kindergarten student at a public school in New York City called the Manhattan School for Children. Valente has cerebral palsy and hypotonic quadriplegia, which affect her ability to walk and speak. However, she gets around with her Hart Walker, which allows hands-free mobility and lets her walk on her own, and she uses an AAC device called the Gemini to communicate.
Before she received her Gemini, Valente used communication books containing Mayer-Johnson symbols to speak. Her parents, Tucker and Laura, wanted something a bit more sophisticated for her, but loved the Mayer-Johnson picture symbols. The Gemini turned out to be the perfect fit for Valente, as it had the technical features Valente's parents wanted for her, and the symbols they were all familiar with. However, it was initially a challenge to acquire the device.
Before Tucker and Laura knew what type of device they wanted, they asked the New York City Board of Education to do an augmentative communication evaluation for Valente. The Board initially suggested that it was not appropriate to purchase a sophisticated device for Valente until she could show mastery of basic communication skills with the Mayer-Johnson symbols she was familiar with; otherwise, they thought, Valente would only become frustrated with an AAC device's complexity. Tucker and Laura pointed out that the symbols alone were of limited use, since they could only show Valente a few words at a time. This had forced them to choose what Valente could talk about, and Valente had long ago grown bored by what she seemed to think was a meaningless exercise. They argued that asking Valente to prove herself first with symbols on paper was like saying she didn't deserve vocal cords until she could prove that she could write. With a sophisticated device, they countered, Valente would be able to speak countless words out loud, and that would motivate her to use with her device - and to learn to express herself. The Board of Education was convinced by Tucker and Laura's position, and agreed Valente would benefit from an AAC device. They quickly recommended the Gemini as the "state of the art" device for Valente, and in September of 2002, they purchased Valente's Gemini for her.
At first, like all kids learning to speak, Valente started out with nonsensical sentences. She then progressed to using single words, and now she is starting to put together complete, realistic sentences. "The Gemini motivates Valente tremendously. And that's it - with kids with special needs, lucking into what motivates them is the thing," Tucker said. Tucker likes that the Gemini allows him to custom tailor sounds and symbols that Valente is familiar with, and feels that with the Gemini, he and his wife can reinforce skills Valente is learning. He also thinks it's very important that Valente has a "linked network" of boards that she can easily access - she can initiate and direct conversations, and change the topic if she wants to - something she couldn't do with a book of symbols.
"Learning the sounds of letters is difficult for a non-verbal child," said Tucker. "There are more steps that need to be taken to learn the concept." With this in mind, Tucker designed a game on Valente's Gemini in which Valente touches the screen, and it says, for example, "Find the letter that sounds like 'buh,' for 'boy.'" If she touches the wrong letter, the game provides another example: "'Buh,' for 'baloney.'" When Valente finds the right letter, her reward is a familiar sound - the chimes that she hears on one of her favorite TV shows, "Blues Clues." Valente's game became so popular with her classmates that it is now a standard learning activity that any of the children can choose to do with her. Valente's Gemini "helps facilitate meaningful interaction with typically developing kids," her father said.
At school, Valente loves to participate in circle time, especially on Mondays when all the students talk about what they did over the weekend. Valente uses her Gemini to tell her classmates what she did. Each weekend, Valente's parents create boards on Valente's Gemini so that she can, for example, touch a picture of herself on a horse that her parents scanned in to say, "I rode a horse at a farm this weekend!"
Lately, Valente has been keeping very busy. She was recently featured in an article in Nick Jr. Magazine called "Change the World - One Playdate at a Time." The article was written for parents who do not have disabled kids, but want their children to have playdates with kids who have disabilities. This summer, Valente is going to summer camp at Standing Tall in Manhattan, where she'll go on bike trips, go swimming, take trips to museums, and more. "Valente leads a very full life," her father said proudly - and will surely continue to make huge strides as she grows.
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