Communication with Jess - Part One

By Jess, PRC-Saltillo Blogger

Hey I’m Jess. I am 24 years old and I have an Accent 1000.

My loved ones know me well enough to understand my other ways of communicating like facial expressions or eye movements but, for everyone else my communication device is paramount for me to have a voice.

I use my device to communicate my needs, choices and have conversations with everyone, also for controlling my TV, using emails, social media, accessing the internet and for using text message function so my device literally allows me to stay connected to the world.

I have now settled into my brand new home that me and my boyfriend Aidan have built.
I was heavily involved in the planning process from the start to the completion.

I used my communication device to make choices about what land we wanted, how our new home would be laid out, our colour schemes, tiles and furniture.

I would regularly use my communication device to respond to emails from the builders
and occasionally have to send emails chasing them up when they were not meeting time frames.

Most of the words needed for these emails are stored in my system in preset categories. For example, if I needed a colour I would go to the colour button and choose from a whole selection of colour words to add into my sentence.

For most parts I can use preset words from different categories but I do also use individual letters to form any words not already stored.

 
I am really happy with our new home and feel extremely proud to have been part of the entire process. My communication device allowed me to communicate effectively with many different people throughout the build.

So now I have support workers come into my home most days to support me to live an independent life, I like to say I am a stay at home wife to be!!