Jake's grant plan to escape intensive suit therapy

For those of you who are waiting to hear about Jake’s amazing progress after his latest suit therapy in Michigan, I am sorry to give you the most disappointing news – Jake was too sick to participant in therapy.

Yeap…. Jake got sick the weekend before he was scheduled to start the 3 weeks intensive suit therapy. Initially we were still hopeful that Jake would fully recover within a few days but unfortunately he got sicker and sicker as we stayed in Michigan. Here is a picture of Jake watching DVD in bed, while getting his breathing treatment in Michigan. (Not exactly the kind of therapy I had in mind for him). By day 10, we had no choice but to packed out bags and drove back to New York. The good news is now that we are back at home, Jake seem to be recovered rather well. Sometimes I think it was his grand plan to escape therapy! But then again, probably not, poor kid; he couldn’t keep any liquid or food down for almost 3 days. I think he has lost a few pounds.

On a good note, Jake is making great progress in using his augmentative communication device.He has a mini-merc (http://www.assistivetech.com/p-minimerc.htm).

Jake can navigate through 3-4 pages to get to where he wants to go and make his choices. He is really eager to communicate through his device as well as use his manual theme boards. For example, before we brush teeth, he has to point to his teeth brushing manual board and say “brush teeth”, “get toothpaste”, “get tooth brush”, “get cup”, “get water”. During meal time, he independently points to his meal time manual board and say “eat more”, or “drink”, or “napkin wipe face”, or “finished”, etc. I am also working on teaching him read sight words. We just started a little bit of it but reading sight words will be my major push for the next year. I am very hopeful that one day, Jake will be able to communicate through his ACC device independently.