Hello, my name is Derek and I have Cerebral Palsy. In early 2008, I received a Dynavox V Max speech generating device from CAYA. I use this device to augment my own speech which can be very difficult for unfamiliar listeners to understand. Without the V Max, expressing my thoughts was very time and energy consuming. When I relied on my speech alone, people had a lot of trouble understanding me and I had to repeat my messages over and over again. But this still didn’t guarantee that I was understood.
Now that I am using the V Max for communication, I am more willing to participate in meetings (e.g. Coalition of People with Disabilities, Strata Council Meetings) and express my opinion. In addition, using the V Max has given me the confidence to handle unexpected situations on my own. As a recent example, I had to redirect a taxi driver who had not followed his dispatcher’s instructions properly. Before the V max, this entailed several minutes of my trying to explain the problem to an increasingly frustrated driver. With the V max, I was able to explain the problem in one try.
CAYA has improved my verbal independence greatly.