A T-shirt is helping a nonverbal boy communicate
Iwas at Target shopping for jeans. But as it is with all things shopping-related, I came away with more than I intended. The jeans alone were a big deal. Because my 7-year-old son, Charlie, has cerebral palsy, he wears braces on his legs.
The skinny-jean phenomenon is not for us. The material matters as well. If it is stiff, he finds it difficult to bend his legs and maneuver in his wheelchair. Charlie also wears diapers. Therefore, the more complex the composition of buttons and zippers, the harder his day is. Because of all this, I have become a jean connoisseur. The Cat & Jack adaptive jeans are a miracle in pantform. They’re soft, with an elastic waist and snaps at the bottom to accommodate leg braces.
I was buying a second pair (because when you find jeans that work, you double up) when I came across a bright blue shirt covered in emoji. It was in the same line of adaptive apparel and it was on sale. My first thought: This is hilarious. My next thought: Oh, it’s soft and cheap. Naturally, I bought it.
The first time I dressed Charlie in his new shirt, he was getting ready
to attend his special needs summer camp. I was telling him what they would do and which friends he would see, because he likes me to talk him through the story of his day before it starts. As I pulled on his shirt and described the trip they would take to the pool, he looked down and pointed to the emoji with the sunglasses, the one that said “awesome” under it.
I laughed. Charlie is mostly nonverbal and uses a speaking device, but his go-to for communication has always been pointing. I said, “Yeah, Charlie, it is awesome.”
I thought it was a fluke. He was digging the bright yellow faces on his shirt because they were fun. But later, when I picked him up from camp, I asked him how his day was, and he pointed again to the sunglasses face and then the snoozing one with all the Z’s. I’m always afraid to put words in Charlie’s mouth for fear of misinterpreting him, but when I didn’t speak right away he pointed again in the same order.
“It was awesome and now you’re tired?” I said finally. And he nodded.
I stood there for a minute in the hot sun in the parking lot as Charlie waved goodbye to fellow campers, and I let it sink in. He was using the shirt to talk. He had found a way to communicate his feelings in that moment using the material he had on hand. I was stunned that he could be so resourceful.
But perhaps I shouldn’t have been. Charlie has always been tactile and quick to express himself. He thrived with PECS, the communication system that uses picture cards and Velcro storyboards. He’d flip through those cards like a blackjack dealer until he found what he needed. But moving on to his speaking device, which looks similar to an iPad, was a tougher transition. It is more complex and adaptive, which he needs, but it also requires more patience, which he doesn’t always have. He tends to resist tapping from screen to screen to piece together the sentence in his mind. This is why the emoji shirt is so empowering for him. It’s right there.