My big brother frequently talks about how being my brother, the brother of someone with a fairly severe congenital physical disability, has affected how he raises his young son and opened his mind to how certain adaptations for people with disabilities have more universal applications. Growing up, he watched us figure out how to make things work for his baby sister every day. We were a fairly active family and we just made things work. He watched that process and now applies it when his infant son is struggling with similar things. Its pretty amazing watching this process from the outside.
We supplemented plastic silverware for standard metal as it was readily available and much lighter and easier to maneuver for me. My brother remembered this when his son was having trouble getting that big, relatively heavy fork that never wants to stay level in to his tiny mouth. He asked the waitress for a plastic fork (which 99 of restaurants have) and his son picked it right up and started using it. I doubt that is something a lot of people would think of because your standard fork is one of those tools most people just use without thinking of itapos;s weight or usability, but when your muscle functionality is extremely limited (like an infant or person with a mobility impairment) it makes a HUGE difference.
While I am not hard of hearing (despite allegations to the contrary), I imagine his experience as my brother, as well as having a wife trained in adaptive education, also made him open to teaching his son preverbal sign language. Watching my 16 month old nephew effectively communicate his needs to his parents without throwing a fit or getting frustrated (even though he was not feeling good at the time) was simply amazing and I imagine sets a great tone for the future of his communication skills as they develop. When I saw him last, he could ask for food, drink, and help (specified what he needed help with initial sign, then pointing at what he needed help with), and really that is a huge portion of what any infant needs from us beyond love and attention (which they donapos;t know to ask for beyond getting up in your lap, covered by "help"). It makes a lot of sense to teach this method of communication traditionally reserved for people who are hard of hearing/deaf to infants who have yet to develop speech, for different reasons clearly, but all in the name of effective communication.
And, having nothing to do with children, of course my brother being who he is also points out that closed captioning, originally developed for people who are hard of hearing/deaf, is now implemented in loud environments such as bars and gyms everywhere. I wonder if the original developers of this technology knew how universally applicable it would be?
diablo 2 barb setup, aint no mountain high lyrics temptations, aint no mountain high or low, aint no mountain higher, aint no mountain higher enough.
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий