My son found his voice on a Tuesday

My son Oliver is eleven, and he has cerebral palsy. He understands far more than the world tends to assume. The trouble was always getting what is inside his head out into the room. He has plenty to say, and for years he had no reliable way to say it, which is a hard thing to watch in your own child.

We had tried a few communication aids, and some were far too complicated for the situations where he needed them most. The 7-Level Communication Builder turned out to be the right amount of simple. It has large panels he can press with the flat of his hand, and you can record real messages onto each one, then switch between levels as the day changes. His mother recorded the ones for morning, I recorded the ones for the football, and his teaching assistant set up a level for school.

The moment I will not forget happened on a Tuesday. Oliver pressed a panel we had recorded, and out came the words, I want to stay out longer. It was such an ordinary sentence, and it undid me completely, because he was not answering a prompt. He was telling us what he wanted, on his own terms, in the garden, with the light going. He has been telling us things ever since. I would recommend it to any family who has been waiting, as we were, for a way in.