CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF THAT EYE GAZE, CAN YOU?

If you're tired of hearing Colby eye gaze stories, you might as well go ahead and unfriend me on Facebook and never read my blog again. I'm loving that Colby is using his eye gaze more, and I'm also trying to learn how to program it more. Also teaching the nurses how to get it set up for him. Our goal is to have it set up in front of him most of the time. He doesn't have to constantly use it, of course, but it should be made available to him if he wants to use it.

So what is "eye gaze" exactly? It's how Colby is learning to communicate. He is nonverbal, able to make jabbering noises, but does not have the muscle strength and control to make words. His eye gaze is an amazing machine. Like I say, it can do everything but make you a ham sandwich! It's about the size of a laptop. Part of it is like a regular computer. It runs Windows. It has wifi so he can get on the internet. He can download and listen to music. Then there's the "eye gaze" part. This allows Colby to make choices using only, yes, his eyes. He looks at the screen and when he sees the icon/word/phrase he wants to choose, he focuses his eyes on that choice. The computer will put his icon/word/phrase at the top and say it for him. There are tons of icons to choose from, or we can take and download pictures also. You can pick one of the voices on the eye gaze, or you can also record noises or words. You can link pages. Colby can even use his eye gaze to turn the TV on and off and change channels. Actually he could operate anything with a remote control using eye gaze, as long as we programmed it. He also uses it in class to count, answer multiple choice questions, etc. It's an incredible piece of technology, and I'll admit it, some days I love it and some days I hate it. But I feel that way about most things most days; eye gaze shouldn't be an exception haha.

Colby has made awesomely awesome progress with this machine over the last couple of years. Especially with the things HE wants to learn to do, haha. I'm very, tremendously proud of him. This eye gaze is what we need to tap into that brain of his, so we'll continue to work on it. He has proved time and time again he knows how to use it and navigate through the pages. For example, let's say Colby wants to turn on the TV in his room. See the pic below. This is Colby's "home page" on eye gaze. First, he would go to the ECO tools button, 6th from the left, top row. This would move him to a different page, where he would then choose the Remotes button, 2nd from the left on the top row. That would move him to another page. From there he would choose whether he wanted the bedroom or living room remote. Once on that page, he could turn the TV on, change the channels we programmed for him, move the volume up and down, etc. Colby can do this with incredible speed and accuracy. You'll see that one of these days when I get a camcorder and record him doing it. Then you'll have no doubt of his ABILITY to do eye gaze, and will understand my frustration in him lacking the MOTIVATION to do the things we ask him to do on it.  

So I'll carry on with the eye gaze situation, and I'll be reporting the good, the bad and the ugly. Video to come soon. You'll be quite impressed, trust me.