Communication Board at Bailey Highway Park / Photograph courtesy Mary Elizabeth McEwen
June 12. By Erica Batten. The playground at Bailey Highway Park has a brand new characteristic that makes the play area extra accessible to kids with disabilities that have an effect on their speech. The colourful new device is named a communication board, and it’s an instance of augmentative and various communication, or AAC.
“It’s a approach to give an individual a voice after they don’t have one,” stated Mary Elizabeth McEwen, a pediatric speech-language pathologist and proprietor of Homefront Speech Remedy.
McEwen stated that within the U.S. greater than two million folks, together with these with autism, cerebral palsy, apraxia, and different situations that have an effect on speech, use AAC. She spearheaded the hassle to have communication boards put in at three native parks: Bailey Highway Park, North Mecklenburg Park in Huntersville, and Hope Park on the Lowe’s YMCA in Mooresville.
Extra coming
She is working to get boards in much more public areas.
McEwen
Set up of the boards was a joint effort of McEwen, the Mecklenburg and Iredell park and recreation departments, and Channing’s Pleasure, a Charlotte-based nonprofit that raises consciousness of autism. The boards have been manufactured by Smarty Symbols, which creates flashcards, video games, and different AAC supplies.
The communication board has photos and corresponding phrases to signify widespread phrases and phrases, and—identical to common speech—it’s a two-way communication device. A baby who’s unable to talk might level to the symbols for meals. The buddy or mum or dad utilizing the board with them then vocalizes communication about that image, corresponding to asking “Are you hungry?” or speaking about varieties of meals.
Fortunately, the board additionally contains notes on how you can use it successfully. For folks and different caregivers of kids with speech disabilities, the board is a mild introduction to AAC.
Studying playfully
“The presence of this board will assist make it really feel extra acquainted, comfy and fewer scary when it’s advised that their little one begins utilizing AAC,” stated McEwen. Its strategic location on a playground helps the analysis that kids study greatest via play. Authors of a 2023 ebook referred to as “A Pedagogy of Play” clarify that in playful studying, kids discover, lead their very own studying, and, finally, join studying with pleasure.
As she has linked with kids via speech remedy, McEwen has additionally loved the training course of, significantly problem-solving when kids have a number of disabilities.
“I really feel like my eyes have been frequently opened to the truth that these youngsters are created with objective and have deep worth on this world.” McEwen stated. “It drives me loopy when folks write youngsters off as ‘too this’ or ‘too that’ simply because they could not converse.”
The board at Bailey Highway Park was put in in Might and has already drawn guests’ consideration.
“Many individuals are merely ignorant [of] folks with disabilities,” McEwen stated. “My hope is that this may help be the start of elevated neighborhood consciousness, inclusion and pave the best way to creating public areas extra accessible.”
After nearly a decade of expertise in her area—and having three kids of her personal—McEwen would say that her personal consciousness has shifted as properly.
“I’ve discovered a lot from the superb kids I work with, however most of all to at all times presume competence, at all times presume potential and by no means misread not with the ability to converse with not having something to say,” she stated.
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