Our first-born son was speech delayed. At 2 years old, he was still only speaking in single sounds and with few words. We were convinced that he was understanding more than he was able to say but couldn’t find a way to get him to speak more freely and in more than single sounds/words. One morning, I went into his room to get him out of bed and I was wearing a tee shirt with a picture of a red truck on it.

I sat him on my lap and told him “good morning” and asked how he was doing. He didn’t answer (which was normal for him) but was staring intently at my shirt. He reached out and touched the truck and said, “truck”, then “red truck”, then “big red truck”. After my initial reaction of surprise (he had never put words together before), I couldn’t stop smiling! This was a breakthrough moment with our son.

He was not only connecting the words, he was connecting with me as he was close to me, on my lap facing me, and touching my shirt / touching me. It was a great feeling of connection, both physically and emotionally, for me as a parent and a joy to see things starting to ‘click’ for my son. I knew that I needed to find a way for other parents to feel what I was feeling that morning.

After that, I began picking out different tee shirts with various letters, words, or pictures on them and wearing them to greet my son in his room each morning. It became our routine each day for him to sit on my lap and touch the various letters / words / object and tell me what they were. This became my favorite part of the day. These morning sessions became the foundation for Big Red Truck^™ Learning Systems.

When I sat down to start formalizing what could be designed, the creative juices started to flow. I also knew that I wanted to be able to incorporate an interactive app into the process as technology will play a key role in the futures of all of our children. We then started to work on building an app that could support our ‘wearable game board’ concept, and the Big Red Truck^™ Learning Systems was born! And best of all, we have our own children to serve as the initial testers of each game board concept. Our kids, along with thousands of others across the globe, love to play the games we’ve built, and we hope yours will as well!