Around the
Water Cooler
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Communication Partners:
A User’s Perspective
by David Chapple
This month’s column is the first of a two part series. For the first part I will write my personal experiences as an AAC user about communicating with people who speak. Next month I have asked my friend and roommate of twenty years, Michael Moats, to write his perspective as a non-AAC user on talking to people with speech disabilities. Mike has been working with people with disabilities in various capacities since he was eighteen so he has rich and unique experiences to give readers the other side of this equation.
Let me start with one of the biggest problems I encounter - people not having the patience or giving me the time to talk! To my surprise this happens numerous times with my remote troubleshooting job. I even say: “I am speaking with a device please don't hang up”, but sometimes that does not even work. Many times people will say they want to talk to a real person instead. That is very hurtful to me and my usual response goes something like this: “I am a real person. Isn’t the person using the device you are calling about a real person?” The person’s usual response on the other end is hanging up on me. You have to find humor in this. Another interesting and amusing reaction is that Prentke Romich Company created this amazing robot that has the ability to answer and ask questions spontaneously.
I hate to say this, but most of these ignorant people are speech-language
pathologists (SLPs). I don’t want to offend anybody, but I am just
telling you the facts. I think SLP’s should know better, because
it is their professional obligation to make people like me successful
communicators and meet their potential in life in general. My point is:
I have this wonderful communication device and please have patience and
give me time to use it.
Another problem I often face is people do not always wait for my response during a conversation. This most commonly happens when I am in a group of people. By the time I am finished composing my comment sometimes the topic has changed and everybody has to stop and remember what we were talking about five minutes ago. Although this is very frustrating, I know people are not doing this on purpose, and they try their best to not let this happen. I have had one of my daytime aides, Becky, for almost six years, and we are near and dear to each other. I was her first client who used AAC. She even sometimes forgets what we are talking about when we are talking one-on-one. She feels terrible when this happens, but I learned to laugh it off.
The last thing I want to address is when people talk loudly to me or treat me like I am four years old. Most of the times I ignore it and let it pass, but sometimes I just cannot. One of these times was when I had to be taken to the emergency room, because my lung collapsed. To begin with I was already irritable, because I was in excruciating pain. Then this really young intern examining me started with what I refer to as “baby talk”. Something inside of me just snapped, and I let this poor woman have it. This was over fifteen years ago so I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it was something like “I am twenty something and going to college.” I also threw in some few choice adult words. It should go without saying I didn’t see that intern again, and the other hospital staff treated me with the respect I deserved.
From this column people may think I have a multitude of negative experiences and don’t believe attitudes will change, but they would be wrong. I believe we can make changes in people’s attitudes and behaviors toward individuals with disabilities who use AAC. We just need to have strategies to make those changes, and learn to speak up to make people aware of their manners. When I am in one of the circumstances I mentioned above I try to educate the people involved so it does not happened again. That is what all AAC users need to do: educate people on how to communicate with us, so we will not be in awkward situations or ignored. Although AAC technology was introduced over 40 years ago, AWARENESS is still a major theme with the general public. Please, consider emailing your strategies to build public awareness of AAC conversational etiquette. Hopefully, Mike will give us some insights into the thoughts from the other side of the conversation.
I look forward to hearing from you.
This month’s column is ending with a couple photos from the Pittsburgh
Employment Conference (PEC) for Augmented Communicators, a great place
to gather and discuss issues important to AAC. PEC is a biennial conference
being held this year on August 7-9, 2009 at the Sheraton Station Square
in Pittsburgh. See you at PEC – an equal opportunity conference!
Your feedback is always valued. AACConsumerNet@aacinstitute.org.
