Hi 👋🏻, i am a occasional AAC user with autism who works as a disability support worker
my Aunty recently discovered S2C and my cousin who is a completely non speaking autistic with dyspraxia has flourished with it. i had never heard of it in my 5 years of being ingrained into the disability space, both irl/online. i immediately came to tumblr and am so grateful to have found your page! thank you for spreading your lived experience as well as your knowledge.
i wanted to ask what your advice would be for how an ally can best show support for the spelling/speller community?
sorry for the long ask! have a good day 🖤🫀🖤🫀
Hi! Kiku is glad you found Kiku's page helpful. Kiku loves that.
Support all forms of communication. Many of us communicate in a variety of ways, and some people won't aknowledge those things that aren't speech.
Give us time to communicate. AAC, and especially spelling, are slower than speech and we often need more time to say what we need to say.
Learn what you can about being a good communication parter(someone engaging in a conversation with someone else) , and about being a good communication and regulation partner (someone who helps a nonspeaker say what they want to say and stay regulated when our bodies are fighting us).
If your cousin comes over to where you live, maybe keep a set of boards on hand for them. Kiku keeps letterboards all over Kiku's house so Kiku can always find one if needed.
Share posts by nonspeakers. If you are on facebook or instagram as well as tumblr there are a lot of nonspeakers on both platforms.
There are online shops that sell speller related merch, letterboard keychains, ect. You could support those small businesses.
Or you could donate to things like I-ASC, Communication 4 All or CommunicationFIRST. (Kiku thinks they all accept donations cut doesn't know for absolute sure.)
Oh and you can watch content made by spellers or related organizations, like the Spellers movie or The Reason I Jump.
So far it sounds like you are doing a great job with what you already know. Thank for asking.
Kiku is sorry this is delayed. Kiku had to process and figure out what to say.
