DisabledRecreations

Lindsay has a Home Stereo System that is hooked into a small Boom Box Stereo with a analog tuner, that we have hooked into a switch. She can turn it on when she wants to, as long as we have the switch where she can reach it or touch it.

At night when she needs something she will hit the switch over and over to turn it on and off until she gets the attention she needs. If she needs a drink or doesn’t feel good or just wants us to figure out what her need might be, she will keep hitting it until we get her taken care of. If she just turns it on and leaves it on, then she just wants to listen to music. It’s a great set up, but the secret is finding an analog tuning stereo, most are digital, and when you switch it off with the switch, it will not stay on the station that you had it on, most likely it will be static. So if you can find one or you might have an old stereo tuner, hang on to it. We had to hook the stereo’s together so she had a better sounding stereo system then the old cheap system, we used RCA to Headphone adapters to hook them together. Works great, again it gives her something that she can control or operate on her own. The stereo is plugged into an AbleNet PowerLink 2 control center that allows switch operation of electrical appliances. We have used this control center for other things also, it is very important to involve a kid with disabilities as much as possible, it makes them feel independent.