Happy Birthday Wishes

One of my students had a birthday today. He is primarily non-verbal and uses a device in order to communicate. In the last year, he has made a lot of progress with his device. Since coming back to school, it has become clear that he has been using his device more at home because he has been using it constantly in class.

To give you a little context for the fun story following, I have three non-verbal students in my class this year. I really wanted to incorporate them better into our calendar time (and later at other times).  In order to do this, my class iPads have an app called LAMP. It is set up in the same way as their devices. This week we have started having the whole class use them during calendar to say the date, the days of the week, and the months of the year. This slows down my verbal students and puts them on the same playing field as my nonverbal students (actually, my nonverbal students are often faster because they are more familiar with the device). It also works some on their reading skills as they have to read the words in order to select the correct word when they first begin.

Today, while we were doing this I heard "happy birthday" in the background. I didn't know who said it using their device, but I encouraged the rest of them to try to wish their friend a happy birthday using the device. Some of my students started trying to use the spelling portion to type the words. I encouraged them that whoever could find the buttons that actually said "happy birthday" without having to spell it would get an extra class dollar, as in the long run this is a faster method of communicating.

One student found it and then started showing everyone else. They then asked how to spell the student's name and added that to the end.  Once they were finished they kept getting up, walking over to the student who was celebrating his birthday and making it say "Happy Birthday ... " The smile on his face was one of the biggest smiles I have seen. I have seen him have this kind of smile at two other times that I can think of. One was when I changed his device from being able to say 84 words to being able to say thousands of words. The second was when he came back from his first general education science class.

Earlier in the day, when I said happy birthday to him, he barely responded (just a small smile). However, when his friends gave the same greeting, using the voice of the device he is used to, he was filled with joy.  This just reminds me of how important it is for us to continue modeling using the device in class and encourage his peers to use the device as well.