This week, we share part two of Rachel’s interview with Tiffany Joseph! Tiffany is an autistic mother of three neurodivergent teens, as well as an educator, advocate, and a part-time AAC User with inconsistent verbal speech. She shares about her experience as a gestalt language processor, how she thinks AAC could help students mitigate their gestalts, her perspective on Spelling to Communicate, and more!

Before the interview, Chris and Rachel answer a listener question about “seasoned SLP‘s” in the listener’s school district who said that “high-tech AAC wasn’t appropriate for kids with lots of behaviors.” Chris and Rachel discuss the question, noting that behaviors are often reduced when a student has a device, and they wonder whether those “seasoned” SLPs should reconsider their openness to new ideas.

🔑 Chris’s motto is “education instead of restriction,” meaning we should teach people how to use new things (like AI, etc) rather than just try and restrict or block them in the schools. In his experience, you can restrict a particular app or website but it’s better to teach students to use the tool in a better way.

🔑 Tiffany said it would’ve been really helpful for her communication growing up if she could’ve had a device that displayed the first half one of her gestalts, followed by different logical alternative endings that she could choose from to help her mitigate her gestalts.

🔑 Tiffany believes that spelling to communicate is a valid form of communication and doesn’t believe it should be controversial. She feels that, similar to “body doubling,” where the presence of a familiar person can help us regulate and focus, having a familiar partner facilitate communication is really valuable. Tiffany says that having a person there for to help coach the motor plan doesn’t make S2C invalid.

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This week, we present Part 1 of Rachel’s interview with the amazing Tiffany Joseph (@nigh.functioning.autism)! Tiffany is an autistic mother of three neurodivergent teens, as well as an educator, advocate, and a part-time AAC User with inconsistent verbal speech. She explains more about situations when verbal speech becomes difficult, the ways that writing text out before hand helps her, strategies she uses when she has trouble with verbal speech, and more!

Before the interview, Chris and Rachel discuss a listener question from a parent of a teen who wants more authentic inclusion for her child, but she feels like encouraging more authentic inclusion is not very achievable. Chris and Rachel discuss the difficulty living in a world that isn’t universally designed, how we can use IEP accommodations to support UDL, cultivating belonging through inclusion, and more!

Key ideas this week:

🔑 People will point out when someone doesn’t talk as much, and it often feels uncomfortable for that person. Not everyone talks all the time, but there is often an unspoken judgement when people are described as “not talking as much.” Sometimes it feels to Tiffany that she always has to be doing something extra, like talking, for others to feel happy.

🔑 Tiffany is a dyspraxic multi modal communicator with inconsistent motor plans, including with inconsistent verbal speech. Difficulty with motor plans can include routine activities, like brushing her teeth. Some people have entire bodies like this, while other people have only parts of their bodies with these kinds of motor difficulties. You can get really anxious in social situations when your speech and motor plans work inconsistently.

🔑 Be thoughtful about saving a student’s energy for learning & communicating, and try not to overdo repetitive daily tasks you know they can do. There isn’t an unlimited well of energy available, so we should be thoughtful with what we are asking someone to do. For example, don’t want to focus on handwriting so much that it limits progress on spontaneous communication.

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Help us develop new content and keep the podcast going strong! Support our podcast at patreon.com/talkingwithtech!

This week, Chris and Rachel interview Bob Sagoo! Bob is the father of Harchie, an 18-year-old young man with cerebral palsy who uses an AAC device with eye tracking to communicate (along with other modalities). Bob shares about Harchie’s AAC journey, Bob’s work to get Harchie mainstreamed in school, Harchie going to college, and more!

Before the interview, Chris and Rachel talk about delivering fun experiences while teaching about language with AAC! They share about why we need to bring playfulness and a playful energy, and some ideas for ways we can bring the fun, like humor, music, dressing up, painting, and modifying games!

Key ideas This Week:

🔑 Parents need to feel empowered - in any situation, parents are the expert when it comes to their child. It’s Ok to respect specialists for their experience and knowledge, but when it comes to your child, you are the expert. You are their advocate and speak on their behalf until they are able.

🔑 It’s for OK not to be OK. There is often a lot behind the scenes going on within families that we don’t see, especially for families of children with complex bodies. We need to give parents grace when working with them - if they don’t do something we recommend, there is probably a reason other than “they don’t care.”

🔑 Bob says the feeling he gets when he wakes up at three in the morning, of “I don’t know what my kid is going to do after I’m gone,” doesn’t really go away, but it can be helped a lot by taking the time to reach out and find out as much as you can. That will help you become as informed as possible as you learn about what your child needs.

🔑 If parents are feeling overwhelmed by information about their child’s needs and don’t know where to start, one good place is to connect with other parents of children with special needs, They can help you get started moving in the right direction, and anytime you’re going through something difficult, knowing you’re not alone can be very powerful!

Visit talkingwithtech.org to listen to previous episodes, find new resources, and more!

Help us develop new content and keep the podcast going strong! Support our podcast at patreon.com/talkingwithtech!