Daily CSR
Daily CSR

Daily CSR
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KOHLER Toilet Inspires Autistic Child To Spell His First Words



02/03/2018

Adam’s interaction with KOHLER’s products’ opens up a communication channel for him.


Dailycsr.com – 03 February 2018 – In an “unexpected” turn of event, Adam Augustine, a young boy, going through the Kohler Design Center to find its favourite “display” and enjoying himself in “pressing each button to turn on the showerheads”, has pushed open “a door to communication” through a “KOHLER® product”. While, Kohler Co. Added that:
“It's not surprising that kids—and people of all ages actually—get a kick out of this hands-on interaction.”
 
Adam is four year old and both his parents, “Keith and Maria Augustine”, are “Kohler associates”, whereby the child is “on the autistic spectrum”. As a result, his verbal functions are affected and the skills of it “were virtually nonexistent”. Mostly, Adam would communicate through gestures or he would point out his fingers, while his family tried “relentlessly to teach him letters and sounds”.
 
One day, to Keith’s realisation, he noticed that an “enthralled” Adam looking at their “new KOHLER Quiet-Close™ toilet seat” pointed at a “word” and “wanted his dad to sound out the letters”. Following this incident, the family made sure to spell and pronounce the word “Kohler” every time, Adam had to visit the bathroom.
 
Gradually, Adam learnt the words like “’Kohler,’ ‘stop’ and other words” that he encounters daily and recognised the alphabet. At present, Adam is able to use “two-to three-word sentences”. Happy to see his son make the “surprising breakthrough”, Keith commented:
“When Adam made that connection with the word Kohler and sounded it out, we were so proud”.
 
When Adam, “a blur of nonstop exuberant energy”, visits the design center, he runs about from “showerheads to faucets” and taps on every letter displayed and “pronounces the word Kohler before becoming immersed in swiping through the information on the iPad installed there”. Adam is making progress under his parents’ encouragement and teachers’ dedication. In fact, Adam mimics his older brother Willia, who is twelve years’ old and this also helps Adam a lot.
 
Keith added stressing on the point that it needs an entire family’s effort to bring up an autistic kid, he said:
“William is a great role model and is really good about spending time with Adam. I realize all parents face challenges as they navigate their children's development, but being the parent of a special needs child takes so much love and effort on a 24-hour basis”.
 
Giving an example, Keith informed that Adam has a “45-step” bath-routine which needs to go in sequence or else “Adam will be thrown off”. He added:
“Other parents may worry about their children getting A's in school. But Maria and I cried the first time Adam made a really good effort to write 'A' on a piece of paper. We take advantage of any tool we can to help Adam, and inspiration can come from many sources—even a KOHLER toilet.”
 
 
References:
http://ethicalperformance.com/