CHAT campers on Day 1
by Kate Battoe
The campers played some very awesome games. They started off with Bingo and somehow almost everybody won at the same time! During their games the campers used their communication devices as much as they could. After Camp Director Beth told the campers about the rest of the week’s real plans, they wrote a Mad Lib about what was going to happen during the rest of camp. Thanks to Addison, it’s somehow going to snow in August, and Leo said we were going to play drums on Fun with Music Day! Matt said that we were all going to Onondaga Lake Park. While we’re there, we’ll see hippos and Graham thinks we’ll be said about that. Makenna said that someone would be a babysitter! We’ll see what happens? For the first part of the day the campers got to interact with three adult mentors who use AAC to communicate, Rick, Kara and Kate, and could see that there are grownups who talk like them. It was just a fun day all around.
In another room, the parents were able to converse with Dr. Nienke Dosa about medical perspectives on communication. Dr. Dosa talked about many great topics and her presentation developed into a discussion. One of the main points was the comparison between doctors who want to treat everyone by prescribing medication, or the “diagnose and ¡Adiós!” approach, versus observing the behaviors and finding the real cause behind them. She used an example of a girl who had negative behaviors at her grandparents’ house but not at home. By tracking her behaviors, the family found out that the girl had her snack later at her grandparents’ and was acting out because she was hungry.
During the second part of the day, the parents had a chance to talk with Rick, Kara and Kate and asked them questions. The discussion hit on a variety of topics, such as schools adopting the stance that kids with disabilities should work with different assistants during the school day. All the mentors grew up at a time when the same 1:1 assistant stayed with the child all the time, and they thought that the new method could be detrimental for a variety of reasons. The parents thoroughly enjoyed talking with the mentors and look forward to seeing them again during the CHAT Celebration.
Overall, it was a great start for CHAT Camp and everyone seem to be looking forward to more!