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Brain injury at birth caused quadriplegic (all limbs involved
) cerebral palsy.
If your hands won't do, what you want them to do
and you can't use your voice, the possibilities to communicate, become
very limited. Especially in a verbal orientated society like ours.
But we do talk with Kiki by offering her our hand like
you see in the picture below.She has to grab one finger while we are saying
where each finger stands for (f.e. thumb: do you want to drink; index finger:
do you want to eat, etc.). First we move the finger, we 're labeling that
finger at
that particular moment. We move from finger to finger,2,3, to 6 max. And repeat
this multiple choice question 2 or3 times. It takes some 20, 30 seconds
at least for her to answer; it is important to wait, till she really
stops moving, because sometimes she seeks temporarily support on a non
relevant finger.
This already makes clear that it is very important to
be very attentive and patient. We notice that a lot of people have big
problems using this language , keep their hands too high or too far
away, are not clear in formulating alternatives, or forget to give an escape
alternative ("something else').