Our featured Language Superstars for August, 2014 are Will (age 21) and Fin (age 23). These two young men first met at Device Buddy Camp in 2007. They subsequently attended several camps together, and currently attend Group Voice, a monthly group for young adult speech generating device users. They have many interests in common, including movies. They both work at paid employment and each volunteer in their communities.
Both Will and Fin have difficulty using natural speech, so they each use speech generating devices in order to talk to anyone wherever they go. Each system happens to contain the same complex core language system, as well as text to speech with word prediction. They are both able to spell, write and read well, in part because they have long had the use of keyboards, word prediction, and word based core language systems in their speech generating devices. This is Will’s second speech generating device and it is Fin’s fourth system. They clearly love using their devices to talk with each other!
Many thanks to Will and Fin and to their families for letting VOICE, LLC feature them this month.