by Jeannette Van Houten
How many of us has experienced or know someone that has experienced laryngitis? Selena Gomez, the singer/actress, is experiencing the frustration over not being able to communicate in her typical way. Trying to honor her commitment to appearances, she made a visit to the George Lopez show. I am sure you are wondering how a person with laryngitis is making an appearance on a talk show. Selena used a Dynavox Vmax for communicating with Lopez.
Yes, I am sure you have questions similar to mine. How did Selena Gomez come to get a VMAX for this appearance? According to the DynaVox Speech and Communication Devices Facebook page, George Lopez himself Googled speech devices. He made contact with the company to have a device loaned to Selena for the appearance. George Lopez gave the questions to Selena ahead of time and the device was programmed with full sentence answers, which were placed under individual buttons so she would not have to navigate to different pages.
To clarify her communication, Selena used multiple modes of communication: facial expressions, gestures and a wipe off board. The wipe off board came in handy when Selena was trying to say "hahaha" and the device did not pronounce it correctly. It was great to see multiple methods being used to clarify and have communication exchanges.
After the show, DynaVox donated the machine, in Selena's name, to The Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles.
Check out the clip below
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
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