Dad, God, and Journey: Rachel R. Romeo @RachelRRomeo I just had such an affirming experience. On my 8hr intl flight back from a conference, I sat next to a father/son. In broken English, the father began to apologize/ warn me that his ~10 yr-old son had severe nonverbal autism, and that this would like be a difficult journey. 1/ 2:59 p.m. 28 Aug. 19 Twitter Web App 41.3K Retweets 178K Likes Rachel R. Romeo @RachelRR... 18h Replying to @Rachel RRomeo I told him not to worry, I was a speech-language pathologist with lots of experience with minimally verbal kiddos. Challenging behaviors began even before take off: screaming, hitting me, and grabbing for my things. The father repeatedly apologized, but did little else 2/ t 813 19.2K 55 Rachel R. Romeo @RachelRR...18h I asked him how his son preferred to communicate. He didn't seem to understand. Perhaps this was a language barrier, but I think instead the child had very little experience with communication therapy. I put away the talk I was working on & asked if I could try. He nodded. 3/ 11 L 705 18.1K Rachel R. Romeo @RachelRR... 18h I tried to see if he was stimulable for a communication board. I started by pulling up some standard images for basic nouns on my computer but I could tell that screens really bothered him. So I summoned my god-awful drawing skills and tried to create a (very!) low-tech board. 4/ 1680 13 18.3K Rachel R. Romeo @RachelRR... 18h And by god, it clicked. I made symbols for the things he was favorite stuffed penguin, and for his dad. He took to it very quickly. I introduced way more symbols that I normally would, but hey, how often do we get an 8-hour session?! 5/ grabbing, for his Li 768 20 22.6K Rachel R. Romeo @RachelRR... 18h By the end of the flight, he had made several requests, initiated several times, & his behaviors had reduced quite a bit. The father was astounded clearly no one had ever tried an AAC approach with him. I gave him the paper & showed him how to use it, and he nearly cried. 6/ 1992 105 28.5K Rachel R. Romeo @RachelRR... 18h This was the human desire for communication, pure and simple. To connect with another person and share a thought. Communication is a basic human right, and I was overjoyed to help someone find it. What a privilege and a gift. 7/ t 2,713 48.5K 172 Rachel R. Romeo @RachelRR... 18h As I face the upcoming job cycle and the nearly endless imposter syndrome of academia, this was precisely the reminder I needed about why l love studying language/communication development. It was a good day to be an #SLP ! 8/8 2,387 2,987 94K

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found @ 28 likes ON 2019-12-25 10:57:58 BY sizzle

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