Robin Hurd

Being a Good Communication Partner

by Robin Hurd

Those of you who read this column in October may remember that our conversation was about adding a “shocker” to a child’s device to encourage him or her to initiate a conversation. “How can I forget”, you are probably saying if you did this, “My child won’t stop using his new words!” On a personal note, we also added some Halloween sounds to our boys’ devices, including a very whiny Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz saying, “I didn’t mean to do it! (pour water on the witch)” It may live to haunt me!!

Now that initiation is happening all over the place, let’s talk about what it takes to be a communication partner for an AAC user. It’s not as simple as we might think, or else our children would not find some people who do just fine with them, and others who cannot get or keep any kind of interaction going at all!

This point was driven home to me this week, when I could not be with my boys as usual during our kids club at church. Part of the evening’s activities involved saying memory verses, which I have programmed into the boys’ devices. The boys know where they are, so I didn’t bother to explain it to the other volunteers. Even when I am there, the boys prefer to say their verses to someone other than me, so no big deal, I thought. Boy was I wrong! The boys acted like they didn’t know what to do, until Wanda came into the room and saw the problem. Wanda doesn’t know the boys personally, but in minutes she had them talking.

So why could Wanda get the boys talking, when the other volunteers got nothing out of them? Wanda knew by instinct how to be a good communication partner!

In a nutshell, it takes 3 skills to be a good communication partner: 1) the mindset that the AAC user can tell you what you want to know, 2) willingness to take anything the user says as if it is meaningful, and 3) time to wait for a response.

The first 2 skills can be tough to acquire or teach, since they basically boil down to our expectations about the person with a disability. It is necessary to believe that the person I am talking to is able to talk with me, or else I really won’t try very hard in my communication attempts. Once I believe that the AAC user can tell me things, I then need to realize that maybe he or she doesn’t want to right now. I am, after all, talking to a fellow human being, not training an animal who must perform a given task every time I ask in order to be successful.

The best way to help others acquire the skills needed to communicate is to model them. Let the staff at your child’s school see how you and your child communicate. Let them see what you do when the child is not “performing”. Make a video to let the staff see your child in action at home, offering the staff a peek at what you are doing at home to make sure that home and school are consistent. Help grandparents and other relatives gain these skills also by letting them see you communicating with your child. Consider setting up a conversation with a relative about something your child loves to talk about, with you close by for help if needed, but not actually a part of the conversation. The goal here is that Grandpa (or whoever) has a successful interaction with your child, so that he (or she) can see the communication potential that is there. It generally takes only a few of these successful interactions before people realize that the young AAC user knows what he is talking about!

The 3rd skill I mentioned is allowing time for the AAC user to be involved in the conversation. Using an AAC system just takes longer than speech, especially if motor delays are present as well. This is actually the easiest of the skills to understand, although a multi-party conversation, like one might have at a holiday dinner, can tend to move too fast for the AAC user to keep up with. It may help your child and your extended family if you are able to have a brief conversation with the relatives before the holidays about waiting while the AAC user’s hands (headpointer, etc) are moving, so as not to interrupt the conversation. Once people begin to equate this with the basic politeness of not interrupting, they generally remember this 3rd skill.

Being a communication partner for a young AAC user is a lot of fun. It also takes a lot of concentration and can leave you as a parent feeling very worn out! Your whole being is involved in listening, not just your ears. You must watch to see if there are gestures or signs accompanying the words, and listen as the words may flow from the brain faster than the grammar. You may feel like the “official translator” for your child, even when the device is being used, because others are not as cued into your child’s voice. Teaching others to communicate effectively with your child can help your child feel a part of his or her social surroundings and build confidence that others do indeed understand what is said, as well as free you from that unwanted extra job as translator!

Feel free to e-mail your questions and comments to me at parents@aacinstitute.org. We want this site to reflect what’s important to you!