I’ve mentioned that I’ve had some recent apparent improvements in my speech, including what I’ve termed emergency speech. I’ve described tha
An article by Mel Baggs , about one type of unreliable speech and how dangerous it can be.
“Fluency is not the same thing as communication. You can be completely fluent, you can even sound as if what you have to say is a plausible response to a situation, and you can be saying nothing of what you intend to say.”
An inquiry into the technologies of speech-based societies.
An article by DJ Savarese on communicating in all kinds of ways outside of what speech supremacy can think of , and the ableism and speech supremacy built into high-tech AAC systems.
When we choose not to use AAC devices—with their stiff, generic, confining, and inauthentic prerecorded messages—society usually stops offering us other ways to connect and instead declares us “uneducable,” “untrainable,” “asocial,” “unempathetic” and “willingly walled off from the world.”
I have come to think of ableism as the cultivated garden of a speech-based society. Many assistive technologies assume the disabled are outsiders, striving to inhabit that cultivated garden. These technologies don’t change the world we live in; they just allow a few of us to climb up and over the garden wall, helping us pass or pose as independent, able-bodied, speakers. Once in the garden, we are seen as validating the status quo, further fortifying the very walls that many of us hope to dismantle with other technologies, other modes of communicating, other ways of being.
People use the verbal/nonverbal binary to render nonspeakers unheard and therefore invisible. In a speech-centric, hearing-privileged world, we are always seen as disabled, lacking. “Success stories,” maybe; “inspirations,” perhaps—but always on others’ terms.
A high achiever in mainstream education from kindergarten through college, I had come to communicate almost entirely in written English. What, I wondered, might I have lost in the process? I began engaging with the visual artwork of various autistics, eventually compelled by the drawings, paintings, and sculptures of seven artists to write a poetic series. By the last poem, modes of communication had begun to blur as I proudly tell five-year-old impressionist artist Iris Grace that “I’m no longer visual exactly; nor am I verbal. When I type, my fingers speak / with an accent.”
Anne Abbott, a nonspeaking person with cerebral palsy who uses a low-tech board to communicate , gave a speech to York University. She talks about how much we are at risk of having our communication took from us and gives advice for communicating with AAC users.
It was only when I started to venture out into the public on my own that I started having problems with communication. Some people were okay; they were patient enough to try to figure out what I was saying. However, there were others that just didn't get me. Right in front of me, I would hear them say things like, “Should she be alone?” I would point to words and letters on my communication board, and much to my annoyance I would hear people saying, “What do you think she wants?” From these kinds of experiences, I learned two things: one, to be patient with people who are actually trying to communicate with me; and two, if people don't understand what I'm all about, and they show me very little respect, I simply leave.
Unfortunately, there are times when a person like me can't just leave. People like me, who use Augmentative Alternative Communication, are frequently, and wrongly, silenced. Because of a lack of patience and understanding, or perhaps even a fear that they'll look ridiculous if they can't figure out what an AAC User is trying to say, people will often take away the person's Communication Device. This happens within the homes of AAC Users, where there is on-site attendant care. It can also happen if AAC Users are still living with their families, and unfortunately, it can often happen in hospitals or in nursing homes as well.
It takes patience and some intuition to start communicating with an AAC user. You have to be good at looking for cues in body language and facial expressions. This is not to say, however, that you're supposed to be a mind-reader. Make sure 100 percent that you got the message from the AAC user absolutely right before continuing the conversation. Use 'yes' and 'no' to confirm that you understood what they said. Also, some AAC users have different signs for 'yes' and 'no,' so make sure you know what they are beforehand.
Otto Lana writes for a newsletter for direct support professionals about why our communication tools are so important to our lives.
A robust communication system has put me in the driver’s seat of my world. Everyone deserves to be the driving force in their life, regardless of disability or oral fluency. Presumed competence and self-determination should not be radical concepts. Dignity is foundational to human existence. DSPs are in a unique role to support all these things by learning to communicate and establishing a professional relationship with the person supported. Communication is integral and imperative to a dignified life. Rely on the person’s communication to drive your support.
I write about stuff. Like autism. And migraines. And teaching. And how teaching is broken, especially when it's teaching autistic kids.
I type. And I don't need to always type. I don't need to type when something else is faster. I don't need to type when I have another option. I don't need to type when something else is more natural. I don't need to type if I don't want to. I don't need to always do the same thing.
Sometimes people will start learning to use an AAC method and focus on it, get stuck on it, rather than the more general communication. How do you have people listen, and communicate, and pay attenion, and include you? The focus doesn't need to be one app, one device, one method. There is the question, the idea - how works for you and them and your relationship and getting ideas across and being understood to each other. What's comfortable here, now, with these people, in this situation, in this moment. It's not about an AAC app, its about your communication.
Not everything is words, not everything needs to be words, not everything should be words. Our words are powerful, and our words are ones we use when we want to, and our words are ones we use how we want to. But our words aren't the only communication method that exists.
It's I can do what is right for me, whatever that is, because I am a person.
And I can have relationships with people who treat me as a person.
And its not about one method of communcation, its about communicating, as a person, with other people.
