Finding Charlie's Voice
Nikki
3/29/20252 min read
Finding Charlie's Voice is an Irish Registered Charity (CHY22899) that supports children and young adults with speech and language communication needs in Ireland.
The charity was inspired by Charlie, now 9, but born with Verbal Dyspraxia - a rare neurological speech sound disorder, impacting about 1:1000 children worldwide.
For reasons unknown, the pathways between the brain and the mouth have not developed, which results in unintelligible speech. It is also known as Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Children with Verbal Dyspraxia have immense difficulty planning the precise movements necessary to produce speech.
Those with verbal dyspraxia need to be taught the precise motor movements necessary to form sounds and words. They need to hear and say a single word over 1000 times before it becomes natural output, and so progress is slow and time spent in therapy is long - often years and years.
Their speech cannot be corrected without intensive, early and frequent intervention from a qualified Speech and Language Therapist.
Every child deserves the right to reach their highest communication potential. Every child deserves the right to support and intervention and to participate meaningfully in society.
We believe that children should be seen AND heard. Communication is a basic human right, but it is also a privilege.
Communication Boards
Communication Boards are one of many aided Augmentative and Assistive Communication (AAC) methods available to allow users and their communication partners share messages with each other. Other aided AAC systems include high tech speech generating systems, pictures, drawings, letter boards etc. Unaided AAC such as gestures, signs, facial expressions, body language and vocalisations all form part of our communication profile. All communication is valid in whatever format is preferred for the user.
The communication boards we have developed have symbols of items relevant to their environment, whether that is in the classroom, school or public playground or playing field. They also contain action words, feelings, and words that can be used to request or protest like “more’’ or ‘stop’ amongst others. We use the licenced Tobi Dynavox suite of images, universally used by our parks and plagrounds to allow for consistency and ease of transfer from the school to public environment. Communication boards are a form of Total Communication. This means that we use everything in our communication toolbox, including pictures, gestures, signs, and words, to get our message across.
Everyone should have a go at using our new communication boards and experience a new way to share messages! Please ensure to encourage your entire school/community to engage.
