The halls of the T.K. Martin Center for Technology and Disability at Mississippi State University have been transformed this week into an airport of sorts.
As Camp Jabber Jaw kicked off Monday, campers encountered an Italian setting. Tuesday, the youth arrived to find shamrocks, leprechauns and green-clad counselors as the camp celebrated an Irish theme.
Today, the campers arrived in the T.K. Martin Center”s recreation of New Orleans, where they will construct masks, take part in a mock Mardi Gras parade and attend a dance, among other activities.
The theme for this year”s Camp Jabber Jaw is “The Amazing Communication Race,” an homage to the CBS television show “The Amazing Race,” during which participants race around the world.
Camp Jabber Jaw features a different setting each day for the campers, all of whom use voice output communication systems because they lack the ability to speak.
The 16 campers come from throughout the South. Many are from Mississippi, but they also hail from Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and other states.
Some are in wheelchairs and use alternative or augmentative communicative devices, while others, like 6-year-old Slade Humphrey, of Fulton, can walk and perform most tasks without a problem. It”s just the ability to speak which escapes Humphrey.
Humphrey was born 10 weeks premature, then suffered a stroke, so the part of the brain which gives people the ability to speak never formed, said his grandmother, Sandra McLeod. As Humphrey listened to counselor Diana Noe read a story to campers Tuesday afternoon, McLeod held her grandson”s hand tight and fought to hold back tears.
“Slade just has a lot of problems, so this camp is very helpful for him,” McLeod said. “The association and intermingling with all these other kids has been great for him.”
And that”s the goal of the camp, T.K. Martin Center Director Janie Cirlot-New said. By helping the campers, who range in age from 4 to 20, learn to better use augmentative and alternative communication devices, the group has a better chance to function and succeed later in life, she said.
“If you can”t communicate, it”s a real barrier to a lot of what you want to do in life,” Cirlot-New said. “Anything we can do to make them better communicators is going to improve their lives down the road.”
Counselors at the camp are speech pathology graduate students from Mississippi University for Women and the University of Southern Mississippi.
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