Matthew, a 12 year old boy from Pennsylvania, has a diagnosis of Partial 9Q Trisomy and presents with autistic tendencies. He attends a special education program in his local community.

Matthew has been using AAC since he was in kindergarten. His first device was a DynaVox 3100 with an 8-location array that his mom configured for him. By second grade, Matthew moved up to the Gateway Language and Learning's 20-button page set. He was using the DynaVox as he larger configuration of this device, enhanced the ease with which he could access the symbols. Approximately 14 months ago, Matthew transitioned from the DynaVox 3100 to the MT4.

Learning to communicate in simple sentences has consistently been a speech therapy goal for Matthew. Early on Matthew was able to form a few sentences that he routinely used. There was not a tremendous amount of diversity in his initiated conversation. Recently he has made great strides in this area. He is much more aware of both the vocabulary available to him within Gateway 20, and he has demonstrated an interest and ability to communicate about some events that he is participating in.

While he uses the Gateway 20 page set, his family and his school team have customized the page to accommodate educational goals and his personal needs and interests. It is the organizational structure of the contents that Matthew easily understands. This structure has guided him in locating targeted vocabulary. But it is the addition of meaningful and relevant vocabulary within the Gateway framework that has facilitated his success. It has motivated him to “talk”.

Matthew is able to request his favorite snack. For his walk in the park, he can indicate that he wants to stop at the "bench", which is located on his furniture page. When dining with his family, Matthew unfailingly chooses the "waitress" button that his mom added to the "Community" page in his "People" tab. With a few keystrokes, Matthew accesses Gateway's verb pages to form the sentence "Waitress, come sit," and the waitress becomes his newest communication partner. By selecting single buttons programmed with full messages on his social page, Matthew can tell classmates about his evenings and weekends or ask how they spent theirs.

Since Matthew has been using Gateway 20, his mother said the original spontaneous messages that he produces have expanded from one- to five-word utterances. He is moving beyond the simple subject-verb-object sentence format that Gateway presents, and introducing more vocabulary from the application's adjective and preposition pages into his messages.

Matthew's use of language is flourishing and so too is his communicative success.

Updated: 11/05