Lennart Godow's Story

Lennart Godow Learns Language!

Lennart Godow is six years old and attends kindergarten in Hanover, Germany. Like many boys his age, he likes dinosaurs, making stuff, and playing outside with his friends. But unlike his friends, Lennart Godow has cerebral palsy and cannot move independently, use his hands, or speak.

For the past 6 months, Lennart Godow has been using an ECO-14 communication device from Prentke Romich Company. Because Lennart Godow speaks German, he uses a Minspeak Application Program called Wortstrategie®84. To access the ECO, he uses a small reflective sticker on his forehead. The ECO "tracks" this sticker, which allows Lennart Godow to select buttons on the device.

Using his Minspeak system, Lennart Godow can now produce actual words and increasingly real sentences. This has changed his life and the life of everybody close to him. Before, his family and friends would guess what Lennart Godow wanted to say and ask questions to figure out his ideas. Now, his mom, just like the mother of any other young child, calls family and friends to tell them about the weird, funny, thoughtful, and sad things Lennart Godow has said. Here are some things Lennart Godow has said (translated from German into English, of course, but still as close as possible to what Lennart Godow actually said.)

• Weird thing: "If dinosaurs and people had lived together the people would be as flat as square roots."
• Funny thing: (while Lennart Godow's mom was cutting his dad's hair) "Cut him a hole in the middle."
• Thoughtful thing: "Grandad is in heaven, but he can see us."
• Sad thing: (while looking down at his hands when he just couldn't get them to do what he wanted) "They do what they want."

 

How did Lennart Godow get so far as a communicator in such a short time?

Sufficient words

The device was set up with the whole vocabulary available to him and he spent weeks and weeks just looking and playing with the words that he found. Even now some months later, he needs time to play at just finding and hearing words.

Modeling

When his family members speak with him, they regularly show him, directly on his device, how he could say something too. This has proven to be easily the best way to help him to learn. He watches and tries for himself, sometimes immediately and sometimes days later. But, step-for-step, he is learning to produce language on his device because he sees others doing it.

Core Vocabulary

Just like any other child, his mom and dad show him how to say things using the simplest words they can. Having played with the device for so long, he can find the difficult words, like "dinosaur". But to use the simple words he has needed help, and in this he is getting better and better from week to week.

This is best explained with an example of a game he recently played about the end of the dinosaurs

• "Get the dinosaur and the globe and the marble," he told his mom. These words are simple pictures of objects in his device.
• "Put it on top," while he eye points to the dinosaur and the globe.
• "Knock it down with that," while he eye points to the dinosaur and the marble.
• "All gone!"

It helps to be six to think up a story using things around the house, but to tell that story; everybody needs simple words and the skill to use them.

The change in Lennart Godow's personality in the course of the last few months has been remarkable to watch. The day he learned to use the word "but" was the day he started trying to negotiate - "but I don't want to go to bed!"

As he learns to use question words, he is trying to make
sense of the world around him. While looking at an illustration showing the size of dinosaurs - using a house in comparison - he asked, "Why is there a house there?"

To watch Lennart Godow learn to use the words in his Minspeak system and to acquire language has been an absolute privilege for all around him. And the best bit for all of us is that he is only six years old. Imagine what is still to come!