All Together We Can

Sometimes the stars/ contingencies align!  Today, I had the privilege of having lunch with Temple Grandin.   While I have read many of her books and followed her work for quite some time, today was the first time I was able to hear her speak.  It was also terrific to show her Proloquo2Go.

Temple Grandin and Samuel Sennott

Temple Grandin’s Talk

The closing keynote address she gave to over 1,000 people  for the Penn State National Autism Conference made me shiver.  Her message of early, intense intervention and cultivating the interests and talents of individuals with autism was moving and brought into focus exactly why I am a special educator.  You can watch the webcast of her talk and other talks from the week long conference, here:  http://www.outreach.psu.edu/programs/Autism/webcasting.htm You can obtain the handouts here:  http://www.outreach.psu.edu/programs/Autism/handouts.htm While sometimes I feel more like a speech therapist or an occupational therapist, listening to Dr. Grandin speak helped me realize that while I am passionate about empowering people with literacy and communication skills, I love the holistic experience of  teaching and helping individuals with disabilities and their families.  This multi-component approach to helping is important.  The many sides of special education:  Behavior Analysis, Speech Pathology, Literacy Instruction, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Vision Therapy, Teaching, Music Therapy, Psychology, Neurology and Medicine  and beyond  are helpful and can be balanced to assist the individuals we serve.  I am happy to be a part of that.  Days like today help me see how many components are necessary to the success of the diverse and unique individuals we serve.

Lunch with Temple Grandin

I emailed Dr. Temple Grandin a few weeks ago and set up a meeting to show her Proloquo2Go, the affordable and innovative communication system for the iPhone and iPod touch I co-developed during a sabbatical time before joining Penn State for a PhD in Special Education this past year.  First,  Temple,  two terrific new colleagues from PSU and I had a nice buffet lunch after her Keynote address.  We spoke about her diet and dieting for people with Autism.  The conversation shifted around to some of the points in her talk such as medications, florescent lighting in schools, wearing colored glasses, lcd monitors, brain imaging and sensory disorders, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, the DSM-V and the importance of affordable solutions for individuals with autism from low SES areas.

Then after the meal, I showed her Proloquo2Go on my iPhone.  It was fun to show her how it worked and neat to watch her interest in the text to speech capabilities combined with visually presenting and organizing concepts.   We had fun trying to push the speech technology to the limits of pronunciation!  I asked her what her impressions were and she said that she saw the value of the communication technology, but stressed the importance of affordability and durability.  She liked the iMainGo 2 case and I felt very much validated when I told her that we have created Proloquo2Go to be one fifth to one tenth of the cost of the comparable portable AAC systems.  Overall, it was terrific to hear her encouragement about Proloquo2Go.  It was a rare opportunity and I am so thankful for the experience.

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