Perseverance on every front
Aside from Christine’s daily sessions with Danny, he also uses the Dynavox all day long in his regular school classes.

“Some of his classmates are verbal, so I think that keeps him motivated,” noted Christine.

She said one challenge she faces when working with Danny is that he’s “a typical 17-year-old boy.” He gets frustrated or impatient at times, he may prefer eating candy to learning the meaning of a new icon, and he loves sports and television, which can sometimes be a distraction.

“He likes to stay up late watching American Idol, and then we have a hard time getting him up the next morning,” laughed Susan Buin, director of speech therapy at Matheny. “But just as the staff has to remain dedicated to his training and education, we expect the same of Danny.

“Even when he has shown a lot of improvement, that’s no time to take a break,” she added. “We have to press on with his education and training if we want his progress to continue.”

Incredible advancements
“He went from having a board with 60 icons to probably four times that number,” said Christine, noting that once Danny has built confidence with the newer icons, they add either another new icon or a new concept.

“We just added conjunctions,” she explained. “He is a very talented non-verbal communicator. His body language and his facial expressions tell you volumes of information.”

But she concedes that transitioning him from a manual board to an electronic device was a struggle.

“We got his input regarding what to put on his pages initially, and we built it up slowly,” she said. “He has really come a long way. He’s working on sentence structure now, putting sentences together to express himself. He’s able to comment on things and express opinions.”

As part of the careers curriculum at school, students are expected to interview visitors to Matheny, finding out more about them and what they do for a living.

Last year, Danny interviewed three volunteers from the pharmaceutical company, sanofi-aventis.

Danny chose the questions and interacted with the interviewees.

“He asks the right questions,” said Christine, “such as ‘Hi, how are you?’ and ‘What’s your name?’ He’s very curious. He’s got a lot to say, and he wants to say it all.”

Christine said the hope for Danny, who is currently in 11th grade, is that he will be able to use the Dynavox independently without encouragement from a caregiver.

“At that point, he can go out into the community and become a contributing citizen,” she added.

Right now, he has three years left to go in the school, she said, and from there he may enter the adult services program at Matheny.

Working at Matheny
It’s the caring environment, the people that work there and the ability to see the patients progress over time that keep so many teachers and therapists doing what they love at Matheny. Danny’s story is just one example of many.

“Even if progress is slow,” Susan explained, “you’re still working toward whatever the patient can give you.”

An employee with Matheny for over 25 years, Susan said she measures each patient’s progress in slow doses, and that is where patients find the biggest rewards.

“Matheny is unique in that they spend a lot of time with the patients, and the staff works with them little by little each day to eventually achieve great things,” said Lois. “Princeton Insurance commends the Matheny staff for their tireless dedication and continual demonstration of perseverance.”

The possibilities are endless for the patients at Matheny, thanks to the students’ motivation and a very special, dedicated staff.