Hi everyone, I’m Amythest, and welcome to “Ask an Autistic”.
MUSIC I want a renaissance, to shine a light, be the change we want, set things right, we’ve
been waiting in the dark for so long MUSIC
In today’s episode I’m going to be discussing alternative and augmentative communication,
which is also known as AAC.
About 15 to 20% of autistic people will never develop oral communication, that is, speaking
verbally with their mouth parts.
But that doesn’t mean that 15 to 20% of autistic people will
never communicate, or that they have nothing to say.
And it especially doesn’t mean that 15
to 20% of autistic people need someone to speak for them.
When it comes to AAC there are a lot of options out there.
There is “no tech”, “low tech”,
“high tech”.
So I am going to talk a bit about the different methods of AAC and hopefully
through hearing about the different methods out there that are available for you or for
your
autistic child, you can get some ideas.
As far as “no tech” AAC goes, you have the option of sign language or gestures.
There are
actually many different types of sign language out there.
There is American Sign Language
which is used by the Deaf community to communicate.
It is their language.
Contrary to
popular belief, American Sign Language isn’t just English translated into “hand signs”.
It is its
own language with its own grammar and structure and its own rules.
So if you choose to
learn American Sign Language or if you choose to teach American Sign Language to your
autistic child, it’s important to keep in mind that American Sign Language is a vibrant
and
living language that is constantly changing and growing as the Deaf community changes
and
grows.
So American Sign Language is its own language.
But it is an option for nonverbal
autistic people who have the motor control or dexterity necessary to communicate via
all
the sometimes intricate signs.
There is also something called Signed English.
Signed English
uses signs from American Sign Language and their own signs, and it follows the grammatical
structure of English.
Signed English is really just Signed English.
So Signed English isn’t
equivalent to American Sign Language but it can be useful for people who are nonverbal
but
do have the dexterity and the motor control to sign and communicate in that way.
For
autistic children or for autistic people who have just begun their AAC journey, gestures
can
be useful and an important stepping zone to more advanced methods of AAC.
Gestures can
be very simple, for example teaching an autistic child or an autistic person to put their index
finger to their mouth to indicate that they’re hungry.
Of course gestures are very limited
and so that’s a con.
But the pro is that chances are your autistic child already has some
gestures that they use in everyday life to try to communicate with you.
Using a letter board to communicate is one of the most common methods of AAC used
amongst autistic people.
When you use a letter board to communicate you either have a
piece of laminated paper or maybe a stencil with the alphabet on it and you point either
with your finger or a pencil or another object to each letter individually to spell out words
in
your language.
The pros of using a letter board, besides the obvious of facilitating
communication and allowing autistic people to express themselves is that it takes maybe
less dexterity or can be easier on an autistic person than typing on a keyboard or on a
tablet.
Two cons are that it can be slow and so people who aren’t used to communicating
with somebody using AAC may become impatient and of course that’s their problem but it
is
a con or something to consider.
Another thing to keep in mind is that when you’re using a
letter board or the Rapid Prompting Method to communicate, autistic people can get quite
fast, or you can lose track as you are reading.
So you might need somebody sitting nearby to
jot down with a pencil and paper what the autistic person is saying.
I’ll link to the website
for the Rapid Prompting Method below.
I don’t have a lot of scientific evidence to back it up,
but I have heard claims and read stories from autistic people and their families who have
had a lot of success with the Rapid Prompting Method.
And so if you are the parent of an
autistic child and you are considering methods of communication, and you want to go low
tech, I would recommend that you look into the Rapid Prompting Method.
I’ll also link to
some resources below on how to make your own letter board.
A method of AAC that I use
personally when I go nonverbal or when I’m having a really low spoon day and I don’t
have a
lot of energy to spend on talking is writing with a pen or pencil in a notebook.
In fact I carry
a little notebook with me in my purse at all times.
So if I need to conserve my words or if I
have no words left but I need to communicate something, I can just pull out my little
notebook and my pen and I can write to Marvin.
There are times when I am so overloaded
or my brain is under a lot of stress because I am still going through burnout that I actually
don’t remember how to write, or if I do it’s very scribbly.
If my dyspraxia is particularly bad
that day or if I am having trouble understanding what letters and words mean, then, you
know, that method, writing with a pencil and a paper is not going to work super well.
But on
days when I just can’t speak but I can still write, it does.
It works really well.
If you are
partially verbal or if you go nonverbal, it is a method of AAC to consider adding to your
life
because it might just make things easier for you or enable you to do things that you
otherwise would not be able to do when you are out of words.
Now high tech methods of AAC use computers.
Back before tablets and the iPad, there was
VOX.
And in North American VOX made these boxes and they were quite chunky, and they
had a keyboard, and they would either have a little screen that what you were typing
would
scroll across, or a voice output system.
And these were pretty primitive and very expensive.
And they were kind of the leading brand.
So autistic people who wanted to communicate
using text-to-speech or text-to-voice output would use VOX.
VOX is still out there and
nowadays they are less cumbersome and they sound better so they are still an option,
particularly if an autistic person prefers or needs to actually feel rubbery or raised
buttons
as opposed to the very sleek glass surface of a tablet.
Nowadays there are so many many
apps for the iPad and for other tablets, but particularly iPad, that can enable a nonverbal
autistic person to communicate.
I’ve noticed that they’re kind of split into two categories.
The first category is a picture-based system and in this picture-style app the autistic
person
or child will select pictures or images of what they want to say or ask for.
In that way it’s
very similar to PECS or P.E.C.S.
And yes I haven’t mentioned PECS, and that is because I am
going to do another video just on PECS in the future.
So stay tuned for that one.
So you have
this first category of picture-based AAC apps.
And some of them do have voice output.
And
then in the second category you have text-to-speech apps.
Apps that you actually pay for or
that you pay more for tend to have a lot more features and a lot more customisable options.
But what all text-to-speech apps have in common, free or paid, is that there’s usually a
keyboard.
And the keyboard is the main method of communication.
So an autistic person
will input a word or a sentence and then the app will speak the sentence that the autistic
person wrote.
Paid apps also tend to have more options for voices, so you can have more
feminine or masculine voices, and even different regional accents.
Both picture-to-speech
and text-to-speech apps can run pretty pricey.
But when you want a comprehensive app
that does everything and that has lots of customisable options, it seems like paid really
is
the way to go.
But if you’re thinking about trying out a couple of these apps, I have a couple
of free ones that I have tried out and that I recommend.
So I will link to them in the video
description below.
To conclude, I want to address two frequently asked questions about AAC.
The first question
is from parents and it’s a pretty common one.
And the question is “Well, if I provide my
autistic child with a method of AAC, will that inhibit their verbal speech development?”
The
answer to that one is actually “No”.
There’s two studies.
One in 2003 and one in 2006 that I
will link to below so the source is there.
These studies showed that it’s actually the opposite.
Methods of AAC like text-to-speech can actually facilitate the development of verbal spoken
language in autistic children.
Many autistic children will repeat what their iPad app or what
their VOX box outputs.
So through that form of echolalia they can learn to communicate
verbally and to be comfortable doing so.
The second question I get about AAC Is “Does my
autistic child actually need a form of AAC?”
And to that I say “Yes”.
A hundred times yes.
To
be unable to communicate even your most basic needs and wants, to be unable to express
yourself, your thoughts, your inner world of emotions and memory, it is very very
frustrating.
Autistic people deserve and have the right to communicate.
So I say yes,
nonverbal autistic children need AAC.
And of course any of these methods of AAC can be
used in combination, or together with another method of AAC.
In fact you could put all of
them to use if that’s what works for you or for your autistic child.
And for those autistics out
there who are partially verbal or who go nonverbal but are largely verbal most of the time,
AAC is for you too.
No matter where you are on the spectrum, if you are autistic, AAC has
the potential to change your life for the better and to enable you to do cool things.
So again
I will have links to every method of AAC that I discussed in this video in the video
description.
Also links on how to make your own letter board at home.
And links to some
free iPad apps that I have tried out and that I recommend.
If you have an autism-related
question that you would like answered, feel free to post it in the comment section below
or
message it to me.
This has been “Ask an Autistic”, with Amythest.
Thank you for watching.