My mom lost her ability to speak, and what you are going to find is that your life and how you interact with everyone will have to change. Human verbal communication is very fast. She will find it difficult to be part of normal conversations. Without lots of help, she will start to fade into the background of conversations, because she can't keep up. You will have to help her be a part of things. It will be a depressing experience for her, and you will have to help her. People will look at her differently like she is mentally handicapped. (I know she won't be, but people will assume that she is even unconsciously). I recommend finding her a therapist if she has to go through this transition.
This reminded me of some wonderful writings from Roger Ebert, a brilliant man who also lost his ability to speak.
I cannot find it now, but I believe he wrote about this exact phenomenon: even with the best technology, you cannot communicate as fluently as a conversation demands, so you're relegated to the background.
Sometimes we have to be reminded that technology can not solve all of our problems. I find one of the issues with my relationships is that I try too hard to help solve their problems. Of course I have good intentions, but focusing on trying to solve the problem can lead to forgetting to do small things similar to what you said about including her in conversations. Think about what she is experiencing. This is the most important comment I have seen.
