Meet Lana!
Name: Lana Carle
Age: 10
Home: Western Pennsylvania
Product: Tobii Dynavox Indi with Snap + Core First software
Condition: Autism
Family, friends and neighbors are celebrating with ten-year-old Lana as she finds communication success. Born with a rare chromosomal disorder (9p22 deletion) and diagnosed with autism at age five, Lana initially expressed thoughts and feelings through sign language, picture symbols and static communication boards. Sometimes it felt like a juggling act, overwhelming Lana and her communication partners.
“Lana can get ‘more bang for her buck’ by learning those core words and generalizing them across activities,” said Kaitlyn Graham, M.A., CCC-SLP, Lana’s school speech-language pathologist.
Core First is “language-rich,” Mrs. Graham said. “The software provides visual representations that facilitate comprehension. The auditory feedback provides Lana with a consistent model of the word(s), and she’ll often repeat the word(s) after hearing it.”
With Snap on the Indi, Lana’s tools for talking are extremely compact—and her road to self-expression smoother still.
“Lana can get ‘more bang for her buck’ by learning those core words and generalizing them across activities.”Kaitlyn Graham
Speech-language pathologist
