Testimonials
If you have found Grace App helpful and would like to add a testimonial of your own please use our contact form to contact me, or send me an email, and if you would like to include a photograph of the person who has been using the App, I would be delighted to share it with the world.
Many thanks to Orlaith and Gillian for sharing their stories below, it really means a lot to know it is not just my Gracie who has benefited from her namesake App.
From: Orlaith O’Reilly
Date: November 17th 2010
My name is Orlaith and I have three boys; Ruairi almost 6, Oran 4 ½ and Sean 17 months.
Ruairi has ASD. (Autistic Spectrum Disorder)
I suppose I’ll start by giving you a bit of back ground and an understanding of Ruairi.
Ruairi was 3 years 6 months when we finally got a diagnosis of ASD but we were concerned since he was age two as he had little speech.
At age three the Health Board had told us that he was not Autistic but I just couldn’t agree, so we went for a private assessment and it was confirmed he has ASD. For Ruairi communication was the hardest. He was a little boy who had so much to say but the muscles would not do the work to produce speech.
We started PECS with Ruairi straight away and he picked it up quick but also tired of it quick we just couldn’t get the words into book as fast as Ruairi wanted and needed them and his understanding was so high and he wanted to tell us.
Also the book became huge and very inconvenient to carry around. I suppose too there was a part of me waiting for Ruairi to speak and he wouldn’t need this PECS system.
So I don’t know if any of ye were like me but maybe our hearts just weren’t in it and Ruairi didn’t seems over pushed. He was well able to use PECS and could choose to use it with people who couldn’t understand him but he knew me and my husband could understand – so he wouldn’t bother.
Ruairi is technology crazy so when I heard through Facebook about the GRACE app for the iPhone we got so excited. I spoke to Lisa and knew straight away this was the way to go for Ruairi. And OH MY GOD the difference it has made to Ruairi and all our family.
Ruairi was so happy to have the iPhone and the GRACE app. Even to a point that we are using it so much more, so his speech is starting to come now. I think it is because he has to slow down to say the words as we point at each one.
It’s so easy to carry around and convenient. Ruairi loves it and the kids and his friends at school think Ruairi is so cool.
I’m a tougher mammy now and I make him use GRACE for all communication and he does. And if the word isn’t there he can take a photo and he has it in an instant. There is no more boardmaker printing and laminating and maybe the word would turn up in his book a week later – as if he would still want to tell me the same thing after a week!!!!!!!!.
Once you are set up its so easy to work with and everybody down to aunts and uncles granny’s and granddad’s get it and I know they are so happy that Ruairi is communicating with them all and at the end of the day what more do we want.
We are on the road to speech now and we believe in our hearts its all down to using GRACE it just works for Ruairi. So watch this space.
Orlaith.
From: Gillian Hoey
Date: 17 November 2010Hi Lisa,
Being the mother of a non verbal child with Autism is extremly difficult as how does he explain to you what he wants??We had tried all methods of communication with Shane….He is a real “Techno Kid” and when my Speech and Language Therapist introduced me to you and your Grace App I knew it would make a big difference in our lives….
Shane had been using PECS and sign in school but he wasn’t interested in the PECS book and sifting through all of the photo’s to access what he needed…
He just loves his iPhone and has mastered the art of finding what he needs which reduces his problem behaviours…..
Also the beauty of it is that it can store games/dvd’s etc which also keep him entertained on a journey or in a situation when you need to keep him occupied for short periods of time…….THANK YOU for bringing Grace into our lives….
We are still hopefull that me may speak but in the meantime we have a method of communication which makes life a lot easier for Shane and us as a family.
Kindest regards,
Gillian.
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