"vkkdmmg gkr glmkkk kkfmnkv gjgkf nf aksnc v kdvnvkbkmvv askkcn fnv bh cnb dnq 4 5 gkc vjv djkdkv cnfnsj fjjvn nvjjfm dnfh gnnbx dnncbv f nmvvmv kcjv nnvj"
No. You've not misread. Your computer hasn't suddenly failed. I wanted to show you what the screen typically looks like when our Sarah uses her laptop. Sarah will sit and type keys randomly. Occasionally, she might ask how do something: how do you spell this or that, for instance. She likes to send emails and asks for help. Her Mum or I will do the typing to her imperfect dictation. Then she will press the key to "send". She likes her Mum's iPad, especially a drawing app. She knows all the ring-tones on both our phones and, because she has amazing hearing, regularly hears them before we do, especially if the phone is in the other room. You've got a text, she'll say, or someone's calling you - knowing whether it's her mum's or her dad's phone. She likes phones - and can manage quite long conversations on them - particularly with friends or family who know her well. She's been able to do that for quite a while.
The letter said there would be a phone call first. Then a questionnaire. Then they would determine if Sarah was fit to work. If the questionnaire was not properly completed, benefits might be "affected". "cbvbv fjkg f kfkkg fjfjg nnvkvk", Sarah might say to that.
So, of course, the letter was addressed to Sarah's Mum, whose telephone manner is restrained and polite (important as "they" are recording the phone call for legal purposes) and whose keyboard and general questionnaire-completing skills are excellent. Actually, I'm not quite sure what the telephone call was for. Whatever it was, the person calling might has well have been one of those robotic voices the local hospital uses to check you've remembered your appointment, so little did it matter what Sarah's Mum said or asked; the caller just wanted to send her questionnaire.
An assessment. Yet another assessment. Another opportunity to demonstrate what our lovely, loving, caring daughter cannot do. Well, she cannot write and she cannot read and she can't count past 10 most days and she can't cross the road on her own and she can't get buses on her own, or dress herself or clean her teeth or cook a meal .. not even put a kettle on to make a drink. But on Sunday when her Gran had gone up to bed, she thought she heard her Gran choking and called her Mum who was in the kitchen "Nanny needs you. Quickly. Quickly, Nanny needs you". Sarah knows about strange throat noises and choking - she's been around other people of her age for whom such sounds are danger signs, help is needed. (No panic. The strange throat sound her Nanny was making in the bathroom was using some antiseptic throat wash. All was well, her Mum assured Sarah.)
Prove to me what Sarah cannot do what Sarah cannot do what Sarah cannot do what Sarah cannot do what Sarah cannot do what Sarah cannot do ....what? Again? .... Again? She's 29 years old. Do "they" not know that she's had Disability Living Allowance at the highest level since she was three? That throughout her school years she was assessed as having special educational needs? That she is a person with spastic quadraplegia? That she has had assessment after assessment?
How many more assessments will she have to have during the rest of her life? How many more people will assess her, who themselves live in their own homes, raise their own families, go on holidays of their choice, enjoy a social life with friends of their own, because they earn their salaries to pay for it all because there are countless peope like Sarah who cannot.
People who are in work because Sarah cannot work. Cannot.
People asking utterly unnecessary questions; requiring utterly predictable answers in questionnaires; to reach absolutely foregone conclusions; causing distress to already stressed families.
So, yet another assessment. Yet another assessment another assessment another assessment xxncnf, jdfhf dhfhf djdjfjf fnfjvjvvif jcdjcvjvnf v vjvjjvjvnv