The Gift of Texting

Many individuals with cognitive impairment have auditory processing issues.  That is to say that their brain can't keep up with the "pace" of a face-to-face conversation.  The result is that they either avoid conversations or if they make the attempt, they struggle with often less than desirable results. 

My daughter Melissa has this issue.  As a result of her initial neurological assault when she was four days old, her brain was injured and she has auditory impairment.  When she was young, she avoided interactive conversations.  She would keep her head down and avoid eye contact which is the common signal for engaging in a verbal conversation.  She has had considerable speech therapy which has helped some ... but the processing capacity of her brain has never improved.  She can communicate with us but formulating expressive conversation is a challenge.

Several years ago we bought Melissa a cell phone.  Our idea was to keep her in communication with us while at school, work, in-transit on the bus, at friends houses, etc.  Little did we know that what we had really given her was a powerful expressive communication tool!

As you know, the process of texting is the formulation of a message which is sent and then responses received.  The "pace" at which a texting conversation transpires is determined by the speed at which the sender and receiver exchange messages.  There is no face-to-face pressure to respond immediately to a question.  With texting, the person receiving the message can take as much time as they like to "process" the information and formulate a response. 

Melissa is now able to freely communicate her thoughts to us ... via texting.  She composes messages that contain questions and thoughts that frankly we never knew were captured in her brain struggling to get out! Via texting, she can tell us about her fears, concerns, wants, pains, and a lot more.  As she started to use this new communication medium to "speak" with us, we were amazed at the depths at which she was thinking.  Because she hadn't been able to tell us before, we had no idea that she had these thoughts.  Now her inner world was open to us.

She fully understands the power that texting provides.  In fact, she has started to bring a note tablet along with her when she is going to be around others who themselves have a similar auditory issue.  They use the tablet for real-time in person texting.  It is amazing to watch them communicate (and even sometimes read what they wrote on the tablet to get an idea of what kinds of things they are dealing with).

The moral of the story is that if your child is challenged with expressive speech, consider a Gift of Texting.  It will open a whole new world for them (and for you as well). 

One final note.  When selecting your mobile phone plan, make sure to elect the "unlimited text" option.  Melissa averages about 3,000 text messages a month!

PEACE