To all of those who are, are thought of as, or are being pushed to be current full or part-time mouth speakers,
If (mouth) speech makes you tired,
if speech makes you have meltdowns,
if speech makes you shutdown,
if speech makes it so you don't know your own brain, your own thoughts,
if speech makes you feel like someone who isn't you takes over your mouth and says only a fraction of what you want, the wrong thing entirely, or rambling nonsense,
If being expected to create perfect verbal speech spontaneously at any time makes you want to scream and run away,
if a long day of being made to use speech makes your brain feel hollow, foggy, slow, or restless and angry,
If you find yourself avoiding situations where you know you will have to speak, even to extreme consequence,
If speech comes out "wrong",
If speech causes sensory overwhelm, from the internal sounds or vibrations, or other reasons,
If speech happens so fast that your thoughts can't keep up,
If speech hijacks all the brain power from other, more important uses of your energy, like sensory processing, language skills, visual processing, and so much more, leaving you unable to do certain things in your life (or only able to do them poorly),
You can use AAC (Augmentative and alternative communication, or as some advocates call it, augmentative and assistive/adaptive communication)
you can use writing on paper or whiteboards, dedicated text-to-speech or symbol-based AAC apps, pointing to letters symbols or pictures, communication cards, email, texting and messaging apps, gestures, pointing to objects, non-speech vocalizations, and so many other ways I couldn't even list them all! !
You can learn a different communication style!
Maybe one that uses a bit less verbal speech.
Maybe one that uses very little verbal speech.
Maybe one that uses none, or very close to none, at all.
It may not be safe to, or those around you may not understand or deny you the right to the best possible communication method for your brain and life, but you still deserve it. You are not wrong for being you. You have the right to be who you are. I hope that someday, you can be.
You don't need permission from anyone, and you aren't stealing anything, taking something that wasn't meant for people like you. It is for you. Communication is a fundamental human right.
It's your life, only you know how your brain works and processes the world. There's a million and five reasons why someone might have problems communicating with spoken word, or find it otherwise to be the least optimal form of communication for them personally.
Mouth speech is not a superior form of communication, so someone should never be made to feel shameful for being unable to use it, struggling to use it, or yes, even preferring not to use it even if they could, even if they seem to produce it with relative ease.
You can never know what's happening behind the scenes, or how much work it's taking for some people to sound fluent, or the true intent of thought behind seemingly-fluent but ultimately insufficient speech. Or the hidden costs and consequences of producing that mouth speech.
The more people normalize communicating in all the ways that exist, the closer we can get to communication equality for all.
