By Judith Roberts
A Louisiana Tech student organization’s service project will allow for verbal and non-verbal children to communicate and play together at area parks.
Tech’s National Student Speech Language Hearing Association worked to donate and design communication boards for four Ruston city parks. They are similar to the one displayed at Lincoln Parish Park and Kiroli Park in Monroe.
“This is a form of assistive technology and is something that someone who is nonverbal or preverbal can use to communicate,” said Abigal Fertal, NSSLHA adviser and speech-language instructor. “We have about 100 to 120 kids in the parish who are using some type of assistive technology for communication. For most of these kids, it’s high-tech devices where they can touch a button, and it will speak for them. But honestly, the reach and scope of this is even bigger than those 100 kids, because this is going to be helpful for young children, like under the age of 2 or 3, who may need a little bit of extra support communicating.”
Fertal said the child can go up to the board and point to a picture, such as “splash pad,” and immediately communicate with a friend or caregiver that they want to go to the splash pad.
“One of the things that has just been on my heart the last few years is that piece of accessibility, because not only is it letting kids in our community play with other kids, but it’s also helping them to be seen, and it’s helping them know just from a quick visual that they’re welcome to come play here,” Fertal said.
Fertal said that Terri Belknap, assistive technology coordinator for Lincoln Parish Schools, helped determine the best symbols to use for the kids; speech-language pathologist Misty Falting helped with the licensing of the images, and Matt Cotton, director of Ruston Parks and Recreation, assisted with the funding for all four parks.
“When we went to the city, we had the funds in our student organization to fully fund the board at Cook Park,” Fertal said. “That was our initial pitch, and we were so fortunate when we went to (Cotton) and gave him our pitch. He said they had some money set aside and could cover the other three. So that was very generous to cover those additional boards.”
Cook Park’s sign has already been placed, and the other three parks to follow will be Mayfield Park, Duncan Park and Huckleberry Trails Park, which was recently renamed for former city alderwoman Marie Riggs.
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