I was a graduate student in 1996, and was in an elementary school in Arnold, MD to do an observation of a 4th grade class. In that class was a girl who had no ability to speak. When she first came to the school for mainstreaming, she could only scream. When I arrived for my observation, she had been provided with a Dynavox communication device and had learned to use it. She could carry on conversations with her classmates and her teacher using her Dynavox and no longer needed to scream. I thought then, how wonderful it would be if V had access to something like that. It was out of reach for us at that time. The device is very expensive and, although medicaid would pay for the device with proper paperwork, V did not have medicaid at that time. It is possible that her private insurance would have covered it, but a speech language pathologist would have needed to write a lengthy report to justify the need for the device. V was not making great progress with her speech therapist at that time, or really at any time that she was in school.
Years later, I asked the school speech therapist about pursuing the Dynavox. Her response was that V needed to master less complex communication systems before she would be ready for it, and the matter was dropped. Without her support, it was impossible to get the funding necessary to obtain the device. However, in my mind, providing V with such a device that would allow her to say what she wanted or needed to say, was the ultimate goal toward reducing her frustrations.
Having Lauren, our current speech therapist, begin to work with V 2 and a half years ago was the beginning of making real progress toward that goal. Lauren has been building V's picture vocabulary weekly and teaching her how to use the pictures as a means of communication. Finally, V had someone who believed in her ability to use something more advanced to express herself and we began the application process to get V her own Dynavox Maestro device.
Lauren completed the report that is required by Medicaid, which confirms the need for the device and the ability of user to access the device. I had V's primary care physician write the prescription for the device, as durable medical equipment, and the Dynavox representative put together the application packet and sent it to Medicaid for approval. The process began in July, and we had our device by the end of September.
The day the Maestro arrived was a really exciting day. I had waited 15 years for my daughter to have access to this. We are just at the beginning of this process now. Lauren and I have to learn to use this device and personalize it for V. V's tutor and her support staff will have to be trained to use it with her has well. We can't get our initial training meeting with the Dynavox representative until Oct 25, so we are trying to figure out how it works on our own for now. There are instruction manuals, tutorials on the device and also on the Page editing software, and recorded online classes on the Dynavox website. There is also a technical support phone number.
I have found all of the resources helpful so far. I was able to get through to a human being quickly at the tech support phone number for assistance with downloading the page editing software. Courtney, our sales rep at Dynavox, has responded to my email questions quickly.
Because of page editing software, Lauren and our tutor can prepare pages that they need to work with V from their home computers, save the work to a flash drive, and plug it in to the Maestro when they arrive at my house for their session with V. Right now, Lauren has the Maestro at her house to work with it, but I can still use the page editing software to personalize Vs pages at my computer.
We have a lot to learn about this powerful tool, but I am hopeful that it will allow V to speak to us the way she wants and needs to. She will have to learn how to navigate her way through the device, but she learns what she wants to learn pretty quickly. She has shown promise with similar software on the ipad.
The accessories include a carry case with a should strap to protect the device and minimize the chance of dropping it, a 9 hour rechargable battery, and a keyguard so that her resting hand won't disable the touchscreen.
I am excited to see what a difference this device might make in V's life!
