For those who don’t know me, allow me to introduce myself. I am the past two term president of the Washington Area Humane Society Board of Directors.
ONE of my peculiarities (weirdness my wife says) is that I refuse to watch television. I would rather spend that time reading a good, or not so good, or even bad book than spend an hour watching a screen on the wall.
Recently while wandering through one of the local libraries, I came across something very interesting. It is a book by Christina Hunger, a speech and language pathologist, called How Stella Learned to Talk. Since I have a niece who is about to begin a career as a speech and language pathologist, I thought that it would be interesting to maybe learn a little bit about what she is going to do.
One of the ways they teach young children who have physical or mental problems with speaking is to teach them to use something called an AAC (Alternative and Auxiliary Communication device). This is a device that will artificially speak when the user pushes a button or does something similar. Steven Hawking, the world-famous physicist used one that utilized his eye motions to generate words.
You may ask, what does this have to do with an organization that is dedicated to the health and welfare of animals, and who is Stella?
Stella is a three-year-old Catahoula Hound mix, a perfectly normal “doggie” dog. We have had had several at the shelter in the past few years and they make good family pets.
Christina noticed that her dog Stella exhibited many of the same pre-linguistic communication skills that a small child does right before they start to talk. Since dogs can understand words, she wondered if it was possible that a dog might learn to use an AAC to express herself like a small child can.
She found a small button that is paw sized and could be programmed to say a single word if it is pushed. She programmed the button to say “outside” and set it by the door. Every time they went out, she would push the button, it would say “outside”, and they would go about. After several weeks of looking at the button Stella began to push the button on her own when she needed to go out.
She began to add buttons, eventually mounting them on a board, and words, as Stella began to catch on. Stella now has a vocabulary of over 45 words and can use them to makeup to a five-word sentence. She can express her thoughts and observations, and ask and answer questions,
Examples:
When asked what do you want to do today? Stella can answer “Eat, outside, go to park, play”
On a day when Christina forgot to give her a treat in the morning, Stella said “mad, mad, mad, Christina” Why are you mad, Stella? “No eat” After she got the treat, she responded “Happy, love you Christina”
When she meets someone new, she says “Hi” and when they leave, she says “Bye”
For more information, and to see Stella in action, go to the website hungerforwords.com.
My nominee for book of the year, at least animal related.
Dave Kassekert
