Nearly all parents would agree that being able to meet your child’s needs is most important. But for one mom, that basic desire hit a roadblock when her nonverbal autistic son’s electronic communication device stopped working.
Jessica Fletcher and her 11-year-old son, Hunter, ran into a little frustration while they were out to dinner one night. Hunter’s communication device stopped working before he could order his food. At the time, this was the only way the child could communicate his needs. If Fletcher didn’t think fast, Hunter wouldn’t be able to order without her playing a guessing game with menu items.
Thinking on her feet
She did her best to remedy the situation by writing the alphabet on a piece of paper, which would allow Hunter to pick out the letters to spell his order. Instead, it frustrated the nonverbal boy. His only means of communication was now a black screen, and the alphabet she wrote had the letters in the wrong places. Hunter was used to a keyboard layout to type out letters. Keyboards are not in alphabetical order.
Nevertheless, Hunter worked through his frustration by flipping the paper over and drawing his own keyboard. Finally, he was able to type out what he wanted to eat so his mom could inform the server. Crisis averted, for now. This brief glimpse into what Hunter’s experience would be like without access to his communication device hit hard.
“That sparked the idea for me. That I can’t limit him to technology because technology does fail us,” she told CTV News.
Technology can fail us
Jessica never wanted her son to be without his voice with her again. To make sure that couldn’t happen, she went to a local tattoo shop and got a keyboard tattooed on her forearm, specifically for Hunter. This allows her child to communicate by typing on her arm when technology fails or they’re in a place where he can’t have his electronic device, like at a pool or splash pad.
The mom posted a video to their Facebook page, Hunter’s Voice. In the video, you can see her tattooed keyboard and Hunter’s small hands typing out “splash pad.” The video is only 13 seconds long, but it has had a massive impact, with over 2 million likes and 77,000 shares.
After sharing the video, Maritimer, a local business, partnered with Jessica to create shirts with keyboards printed on the sleeve. This will give other parents, caregivers, and loved ones the opportunity to communicate with the nonverbal person in their life. But for Hunter, it’s opening up more opportunities to chat with friends.
“Students at his school want shirts with it on the sleeve so he can talk to them on the playground and be able to ‘whisper’ and tell secrets,” she told CTV News.
Other parents praise the idea
People are impressed with Jessica’s idea. Some parents even replicated the tattoo, according to a comment left under her Facebook video. One person wrote, “I showed my husband your video of this and he said let’s do it!! This is such an inspiring concept! We have a 15 year old non verbal autistic son and he would love this on us!!”
Another said, “I’m not gonna lie, that’s a cool idea. And I just might have to steal that from you. Hope you don’t mind having a nonverbal kid is hard, never knowing what they want, that could help. Like, honestly, this idea is like a one in a million. Thank you for that.”
Someone else shared, “I’m a pediatric SLP. Never even occurred to me to get this tattooed on my body. Def a next tattoo. I just love this so much. I have some adaptations I can think of for my non spelling kids! Love to you and your family.”
Another person gushed, “Oh Mama… you are … just….healing my heart knowing there are moms out here showing up for their babies like this.”
