|
| Rick and Dick Hoyt |
"When I was a few weeks old, my dad and mom noticed I was not progressing like their friends' kids," Rick Hoyt recalls. "And after the medical exam, doctors told my parents I would be a vegetable. To this day, I don't know what kind of vegetable I'm supposed to be."
Although cerebral palsy has rendered him quadriplegic and unable to talk, Rick still cracks jokes through a high-tech communication device he was taught to use by John Costello, MA, CCC-SLP, director of Children's Augmentative Communications Program (ACP). Now in his late-40s, Rick has been treated at Children's since he was 10.
Rick, like many ACP patients, can't effectively communicate via speech, writing or sign language, but still has a lot to say. Using everything from simple picture boards to the latest voice output communication technology, Costello and his team help ACP patients express themselves.
|
