Meet Joe
Joe lives in Gloucestershire with his mum Nikki, dad Nick, and brother Adam. He has Dystonic Athetoid Cerebral Palsy which affects his movement and communication. Joe is very friendly and sociable and loves talking with his friends and family. He enjoys walks in the countryside, gym sessions, lunch in the pub, travelling on trains, shopping, making music, listening to reggae, yoga and swimming. His favourite food is fish and chips and loves a decent bag of crisps! Joe’s journey with AAC began at school when his team of SLTs introduced him to AAC. Joe started using paper-based AAC around age 7 and moved on to high tech AAC at age 10. He uses Grid Pad all the time as an adult and continues to develop his literacy through his device even though he left education nearly 2 years ago. How does Joe communicate? Joe uses WordPower 100 on his Grid Pad 10s using touch access with a keyguard. His condition means that he has variable dexterity – so the keyguard helps Joe make more accurate selections. He also uses other forms of communication including sign language, eye pointing, choice making and vocalisations. Joe uses a combination of these techniques depending on where he is and who he’s communicating with. Joe enjoys the fact that he can quickly navigate around his vocabulary – he has a brilliant memory for where everything is. He likes asking for new words to be added to his grid set, so his vocabulary is personalised for him. Joe will now spell the words he would like added to the grid set and then choose where they should be put. If he can’t find or spell the word he is looking for, he will always find a way using his grid pad to describe the word for us. He uses custom grid sets to help him interact with friends and family along with people he is just getting to know. Symoji has also been a great feature (and an amusing one) for Joe! As a family, we know him better and we no longer have to guess what he’s thinking. We see his personality! His Grid Pad also helps him build new relationships – for example when Joe visits a favourite pub, the staff have got to know him over the years and he can have a conversation, ask for what he needs and order his lunch – that wouldn’t have been possible without his communication aid. It’s also given Joe a voice and his independence – he can now choose what to talk about, what he wants to do, and where he wants to go rather than us choosing for him. Joe is also able to tell us how he is feeling. He can identify his emotions and knows how to express them. We have done a lot of work to help him with this and more recently he’s been using Symoji to communicate how he feels as well as using these symbols to ask about other people. It’s also great to see how his vocabulary keeps expanding, allowing him to talk about more and more. AAC has opened up so much for Joe. Everyone can now see how smart he is – it’s changed what people think he is capable of – and he is always capable of a whole lot more than they think! In our Facebook community you can connect with other users and find tips to get the most out of Grid. You can also share your knowledge and favourite grid sets to help others.Joe’s mum Nikki told us a bit more about how Joe communicates
Tell us about how Joe got started with AAC?
What does Joe think about Grid?
What’s changed for Joe as a result of his communication aid?
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