Assignment 11: Issues Photos

"Autism affects 1 in every 110 children and 1 in every 70 boys." -Autism Speaks

This is Braedon White from Coral Springs. Braedon is 9 years old and has autism. Over the passed few years, Breadon's parents started having people come over and to give Braedon behavioral therapy to help mainstream him. Between the time the therapy has started and now, Braedon has come a long way. He can now read, write, and speaks more clearly. Here, Braedon is playing with some toys and has stopped to take a picture.

Every week day, Braedon has someone come to his house to do behavior and speech therapy with him. These therapy sessions last between 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on the type of therapy and what else Braedon has planned for the day. He and the therapist for that day head up to the guest room/therapy room that he calls the "brown room." On this particular day, October 29th 2010, Jessica his speech therapist has come over to work with Braedon. In her therapy session Jessica works with Braedon on the words he has trouble pronouncing. Here, while reading Barney's Halloween Party, Jessica corrects the way Braedon has pronounced a word and shows him how to move his lips in mouth to pronounce it correctly. 

After correctly pronouncing the word, Jessica and Braedon continue reading the book out loud until it is finished.

After finishing the book, Jessica will ask Braedon questions about what he just read to ensure he has understood it. Braedon will then answer the question verbally. After answering it verbally, he writes his answer on his white board that is hung on the wall above the table he works on.

From time to time, Braedon will have difficulty writing and his therapist working with him at that time will step in and help him by using a technique called "hand over hand." For this technique, the person working with Braedon will put there hand over his and write as if he or she was writing. This helps Braedon to see the way his hand is supposed to move while writing. Here, Jessica helps him write a sentence about the book.

After finishing all the exercises, Jessica tells Braedon what a good job he has done, and the session is over.

After finishing his therapy, Braedon heads down stairs to listen to his iPod and look at pictures on the computer.

After a while Braedon decides he wants to see all the photos taken. After reviewing the photos and approving of them Braedon wants to take some of his own photos. I gave Braedon the camera and told him what to do. Braedon then spent the next 30 mins shooting anything and everything. This is one of the photos he took.

This is another photo by Braedon White.