When 4-year old Nik received his communication device, he was BEAUTIFULLY surrounded by his  parents, siblings, grandparents, and even his aunt and uncle.

All of whom came to the presentation to celebrate this life-changing day and to show their commitment to helping him every step of the way.

Nik’s mom, Nikol gave us perspective to why she was originally hesitant to try a communication device, and the impact it has since had on her son,

“Watching your child struggle with something is one of the hardest things. Especially when that struggle is with communication.

We as Nikolas’s parents… growing up… we would never think twice about being able to verbally communicate. Something, we feel we took for granted.

We have tried to be so proactive with helping him communicate. When Nik’s speech therapist asked us about utilizing an iPad in class to help Nikolas, we had a concern that it would hurt more so than help Nik. ‘Would he use the iPad and not want to try to speak?’ We were worried, but after support from his teacher and speech therapist, we decided to try it.

To our surprise Nik seemed to come home, almost daily, and it felt like he was able to verbally communicate more that day or week than the last. Janet asked if we were interested in having one at home and without hesitation we happily said ‘YES!’

To have Nik come home and not struggle with verbally communicating his wants as much, whether picking up more words or utilizing the iPad, would be such a blessing.”

After receiving his device, Nikol sent us this 30-second video of him using it to tell her what he wanted:

Thank you for believing in Variety’s work and helping us, help more kids.