ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – At about six a.m. every morning, mother of two Tamara Wood starts her day like most parents going through the normal rituals.
“Help him brush his teeth, help him get dressed.”
But life has a way of creating a new normal when you’re raising a son with autism.
“If you had a newborn baby, for the first little while whenever they’re growing…if they start crying you have to do the process of elimination,” she said. “Are they hungry, are they wet, are they tired, hurting? It’s like that, but for the past 13 years.”
To just help talk to her son, she’s tried everything in the book.
“We have sign language that we try to use with him, we have pictures, we have his communication device.”
But she said it just wasn’t cutting it. So, she came up with the idea of having an app with all those things and more in one place.
“I have a lot of idea that I’m hoping to incorporate to deal with meltdowns and your body leading up to meltdowns, and it helping to automatically have something right in their face that can help teach them how to calm themselves,” she said.
The app will feature visual supports from picture schedules and a 360-degree location view she said, as well as, other tools like reminders, games and even rewards.
But before it can become official and go out, she’s looking for support from others to prove this is something the special needs community needs.
“Just to show that this is something important and that way whenever I am done with this face, I can go to my investors and say look this is what is needed,” she said.
Because families like theirs are just trying to create their new normal.
“We need this, this is something that can be truly useful for any family,” she said.
If you’d like to support Tamara or see yourself using it in the future, click the link below to sign up.
App: Autism Show Me
(Information from BigCountryHomepage.com)
