alex is practice using aac

alex is 23 years old . is learning AAC because lose speech more often in last few years . this blog is for practice so can use more fast . all words are in Proloquo2Go on ipad .

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about me

Hello! My name is Alex. I am a disabled , aromantic , nonbinary person ( they / them ) who uses AAC part time because of autism , PANS/PANDAS , situational mutism , and trauma . I have moderate support needs . I am both physically disabled and neurodivergent .

my special interest since I was 3 is history and am studying it so one day I might be able to become an archivist at a museum . I also like musicals , my favourites are Falsettos , Great Comet , Hadestown , and Spies Are Forever . my favourite video game is Stardew Valley , I like Harvey and Linus the most . my favourite book is The Secret History .

I use Proloquo2Go when speaking English , Spanish , and French , and TD Snap when I practice my Hebrew and German . I am only fluent in English , but I like learning languages .

many but not all of my posts are showing what my boards look like , because I spend a lot of time customising them and I like looking at other people do it so is nice to contribute too . sometimes I post things on TikTok because I can't fully show what my boards look like in still pictures .

my TikTok : https://www.tiktok.com/@beekidsys

note : I am too lazy to find the ' it's ' button , so I just type ' is ' . sometimes my writing is different to how grammar says it should , this is because of my cognitive disability . do not make fun of me for typing ' wrong ' or ' bad ' , is an ableist thing to do .

[autiboards]

call for help from AAC users ! would like input

Hello! am doing well , not much need for AAC anymore since I only need it when am sick and am doing better now . anyway am doing a thing for TAFE , is a pretend library event about AAC for abled children to teach them how to be polite . here is what I have . is there anything am missing ? ( taken from notes app )

under cut because is long .

aac, just like me!

time allotted: 2 hours age demographic: 5-9 years capacity: 15-20 children + 1 adult per child/family guest speakers: 'elliot', a 10 year old aac user and service dog handler. 'candace', a speech therapist who specialises in aac. order of activities: acknowledgement of country/going over behaviour guidelines (see handout)/visual schedule of event, story time - a day with no words + this is how we talk, conversation about what aac is, meeting elliot (he talks about how to show active respect to aac users in conversation), hand out aac booklets (tobii dynavox my first aac booklet), meeting candace (she teaches the kids how to use their booklets), open conversation time where kids practice using their booklets, go home (kids keep their booklets).

stylistic choices: all powerpoint slide text and handout text is made up of screenshots of aac sentences (using proloquo2go). this allows children not yet confident in reading to understand what is being said, as well as introducing everyone to symbol based communication.

handout: clear instructions, positive language (as in saying what we do, not what we don't do). draft text: There will be things here that we may not be used to. Can we say what some of those things are? The words we use are simple, and each word has a picture. We know that these things can help people who might be different to us, so that everybody can enjoy our time today.   One of our visitors has a service dog. A service dog is a dog that helps our visitor with their health. The dog is working. This means we don’t pat her or call out to her, because that can make her stop helping our visitor. Instead, we have our hands in our own bubble, our voices off, and our focus on our visitor.   One of our visitors might take a long time to say things. Instead of chatting with each other or trying to guess what they will say, we wait patiently and keep quiet so that they know people are listening. If we talk when our visitor is typing, that's interrupting.

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Hello! any Jewish AAC users ?

working on making light tech communication board set to make the synagogue more accessible ( volunteering ) . would be specific to services , so need examples of words needed when at synagogue . does anybody have a word list ? thank you .

[autiboards]

Hello! it has been a while . I am angry about something so today I will talk about it .

I think late diagnosed people need remember that early diagnosis not a privilege . choosing to get a diagnosis is a privilege , yes , but diagnosis in general is not .

to use myself as an example : I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 8 . was forcibly medicated with medication that had bad side effects , not allowed to change or stop them because I looked like I was focussing . no other accommodations given , because medication supposed to ' fix ' me . any emotion parents and teachers did not like blamed on ADHD . was told ADHD was a monster I had inside me that needed to be kept locked away . was still called lazy , spoiled , not living up to potential , lots of mean things , just also called ADHD . ADHD meant something shameful .

children ( and many disabled adults who diagnosed against will ) are given no medical autonomy . even now , is allowed to hurt I/DD people . children and HSN people's diagnosis is a tool that is often used to hurt them by people with more power .

need people to remember that the neurodiversity movement did not exist until recently . unless you are currently a kid , getting a diagnosis as a kid would not help because people were not understanding of ( LSN ) developmental disabilities until recently . ( people still not understanding of HSN but that is for another post )

stop saying diagnosis is inherently a privilege .

[faggotisaacfloofs]

hi friends I finally have a folder for describing words ( adjectives and adverbs ) that works for me! I do not do well with all the folders Proloquo 2 go comes with. so i took everything out of the folders it came with on this page, and put all the words on one main page that scrolls, which is my first one that does that. if I like it I might make my verb page like this too.

image description : the adjectives folder in proloquo2go 8x14 grid, that is 2 pages vertically, and grouped by topic / similar words, and each group colored. The top 3 rows are template core words and the rest of the 2 images is describing words. for example, the words: little medium big small regular and large, buttons are together and light green. there is folders for colors, shapes, and abstract words. other words on the page include: new, important, clean, wet damp, alive, sweet , wonderful, awful, busy, almost, full, enough, cold, warm, slow , tall, thick, flat, poor, weak, strong, part , first , bright, clear, quiet, harsh, plain, messy, sharp , smelly, fuzzy, open, yummy, nasty, sour, spoiled, fresh, fizzy, crunchy, salty. and many more. End ID.

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had bad brain moment and turned on the blender without a lid . pasta sauce everywhere . why is my brain like this . mum says is ok now because we cleaned it up but I still feel bad .

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making a PECS board . special interest go brrr .

more importantly , is really cool how it can have 700 different words with only 10 pages . with core words only being on ' home ' page , means so much more space for other words . really enjoying this process .

also will mean can communicate with speech loss episode on no screen days .

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frustrated frustrated frustrated . know I have something to say but words not coming in my brain so I don't know what to say or type . end up making babble with mouth but can't use AAC to communicate . AAC useful but not this useful .

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the AAC devices in my dreams are horrors beyond comprehension . do not wish them upon any person , real or dream .

[himemojis]

:D very happy, spent 5 hours working on it today!

folder art all done by @/tontoemojis!

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finished with my clues board . most of it is boring , but there are some things I added that help me make what I say more clear .

I find that I can't get people to know what I mean when I use AAC because of the way the voice just says things without tone . just like how tone indicators can be helpful in text , they can be helpful in AAC . I usually can't remember lots of tone indicators , but because of the symbols I understand these ones . they are not added to the message , they are just spoken when pressed . what they say is in the image description .

this is really helpful when somebody is upset . sometimes the somebody is me . it is really hard for me to know what to do when an emotional conversation happens , so giving somebody a ' menu ' helps both of us make the conversation good .

I speak to people from lots of places , so sometimes people find it helpful to have a different accent . the one I use most of the time is Olivia , which is also the choice for the Australian voice . the American one is Josh , the RP one is Rosie , the northern one is Amy , and the Scottish one is Eilidh . when I change between them , I don't change the pitch , so all of them are pitched down twice .

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no sorry , is just a sample of the voice so I don't have to mess around with settings while people choose . I still have to go into settings to actually change it . sorry .

[boxofpigeons]

Some posters I made to celebrate AAC Acceptance & Awareness Month 2024!

Here's a short video you can watch if you'd like to learn a little bit about AAC

The first graphic is for sale here on Redbubble! Let me know if you'd like a different version :)

[autiboards]

had my autism assessment ( third one ) today . the lady was nice , looked at it from a functional perspective . Mum said after that will probably recommend support worker funding to NDIS for me . having a support worker would be really good , means I could go to museums on a week day and help clean the house . also seen other people with support workers have help with making visual schedules , so that would also be cool .

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update : am level 2 . feel called out by my assessment .

[schar-aac]

images: an adjustable cervical collar with blue highlights, shown on a plain bust of a person. in the first image the bust is yellow. in the second image the bust is dark brown. in the third image the bust is medium brown. in the fourth image the bust is light brown

"cervical collar"

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am thinking of going into SLP . would like to add to a more accepting environment where nonverbal nonspeaking people listened to . think having experienced long speech loss has given me a unique perspective that could help people I work with . want to specialise in helping people access AAC or maybe trans voice training .

my need for AAC is getting less , really only use it for making posts like this now ( but in future who knows ) , so I don't have communication problems that would block me from studying it . would require closest thing I can do to masking , and a lot of hard work , but if I could help more people communicate would be worth it . is a 4 year course part time .

might not , really want to work in museums too , but is something to look into .

[autiboards]

had my autism assessment ( third one ) today . the lady was nice , looked at it from a functional perspective . Mum said after that will probably recommend support worker funding to NDIS for me . having a support worker would be really good , means I could go to museums on a week day and help clean the house . also seen other people with support workers have help with making visual schedules , so that would also be cool .

[autiboards]

today , want to talk about how my speech is going lately . having speech loss episodes less less , but my speech has words missing from it . will forget words , feels stuck in my mouth , use sounds and gestures instead , will take me over a minute to get the words out if someone needs me to . is words I use often , sometimes sentences ( ones I can remember are : favourite food names , he is on the stairs , put it down ) so makes life hard often .

is hard to use AAC because is only a few words , rest of it can speak fine . also moved to a big house and because have not been using it as much , is far away when I need it . need to get better at making it available . also with using mixed communication both AAC and speech in same conversation same sentence .