What an Experience!

I have now had the opportunity to meet the boy that I will be working with at the orphanage. His name is Gwembee and he is 22 years of age and has been diagnosed with MR. My CAPSTONE project was originally going to be on Augmentative Alternative Communication for non-verbal children. However, since Gwembee is higher functioning than we originally thought I am now going to be doing a case study on children in Africa who are primarily non-verbal. I am learning a lot from Gwembee. The first time I worked with him I did a lot of getting him to imitate actions, then had Gwembee do some oral motor movements. Now Gwembee is to the point where he is able to identify objects when given a field of three objects. He is also able to imitate words and sometimes says them spontaneously. I think for this first week I will be working with Gwembee on vocabulary. I am honored to have the privilege to work with Gwembee. He has taught me a lot about children with special needs in Africa. I am sure there will be much more to learn.