Blog — Kim Rankin

Jun 24

Jun 24 Augmented Communication and Messy Play

I realized something new in our quarterly AAC consultation earlier this month. We were discussing Nathaniel's ownership of his device and the need for him to have it with him at all times. I've been honest with the team and on my blog that I struggle with this idea. He is three, little for his size, and his device is a full size iPad. It is cumbersome even in the lightest case. I know he needs his words available. I dislike putting the responsibility on him to carry them or wear them at all times.

I brought up messy play. "Nathaniel shouldn't have to give up messy play because he is wearing his words..." I said. We use our water table daily three seasons of the year. On warm summer days, it is my son's "afternoon at the pool" experience. His words and device are exchanged for water, sand, shaving cream, cooked and dyed spaghetti noodles, mud, and rocks.

Jun 15

Jun 15 AAC Part 7 - A New Turn in Our Journey

Kim Rankin

AAC

Nathaniel is taking a college class! Well, not really. Nathaniel is a college class. He has been accepted into a preschool level Developmental Language Group (DLG) at a local university. This summer he attends for two hours two mornings a week. The program is offered through a hands-on clinic where students enrolled in a Masters of Science in Speech-Language Pathology program work with patients under the supervision of university faculty members. For the summer session, three clinicians and an instructor are working with six children. Nathaniel is the only AAC user. He is learning to navigate play and preschool programing alongside peers capable of speaking.

Jun 11

Jun 11 Welcome to Love

Kim Rankin

Our Family, Parenting, Lessons I've Learned

We share a middle name. I did not expect that. Nor I did expect how quick and unannounced grandmother tears come. They showed up first in the shower the morning I knew my daughter was in labor and again standing by the sink in her kitchen a dozen hours later as my husband washed birth off his granddaughter's head.

"Can Dad wash her hair before you leave?" our daughter asked. She has watched her daddy bathe babies for two and a half decades. While she closed her eyes and rested deep on her pillow, her father showed her husband how to wash a little girl's hair. And I wiped tears.

Jun 7

Jun 7 Potty Talk and Augmented Communication

Kim Rankin

AAC, Parenting

POOP
PEE
POTTY
UH OH!
I NEED TO GO POTTY!

We started potty training a few weeks ago. Day one my focus was just on the task. Running to the potty, resetting the timer, running to the potty again fifteen minutes later. I signed TOILET to represent this process and I suspect this will be Nathaniel's first way to communicate the need. But I quickly realized we need potty language on the talker. Speak for Yourself (SFY), the speech generating app that Nathaniel uses, had TOILET pre-programmed. That will be helpful in years to come, so I made the word available. We may use it from time to time in modeling. But TOILET is not age appropriate language for all the stuff little ones learn about through potty training.

May 31

May 31 We Prayed for a Safer Airway; God Answered Yes

Kim Rankin

Lessons I've Learned, Our Family, Airway and Respiratory

After Nathaniel's Laryngotracheal Separation in February, our Cincinnati ENT told us that Nathaniel's new breathing stoma was big enough that we could stand across the room, throw the trach tube, and get it in. We all laughed. That is an impossibility of course, but we now know that with Nathaniel in the back seat, a six foot one inch lanky Daddy can get the tube in from the front seat.

A few people have asked me why Nathaniel's airway is safer - how did surgery provide that? Before we got home, Rich and I had started discussing what was different from previous accidents. There were multiple things working together.

May 31

May 31 Trach Removal at Seventy-Five Miles an Hour

Kim Rankin

Airway and Respiratory

Nathaniel pulled out his tracheostomy tube tonight. A first since airway surgery. The setting was close to what I have always imagined to be the worse possible. We were northbound on Interstate 44 returning to the St. Louis area from visiting our daughter and husband. The highway had just widened to three lanes. I was driving; our van was in the middle lane with semi-trucks on both sides of us. Everyone was traveling around seventy-five miles an hour. Rich was beside me in the front, trouble shooting a problem with Nathaniel's talker. We had just driven trough one of many hard rains. I heard velco and Nathaniel's breathing sounds changed.

Hi.