Idk What To Put Here- I Post About AAC A Lot :D

I hate to say it, but if you can hold a job with minimal accommodation from others, drive a car or take public transport independently, and handle most bADL’s and iADL’s with self-management strategies, you are not high support needs.

Mom: my son can’t talk let me get this app so he can

Son: *talks*

Mom: no not like that

Like you don’t put duct tape on your kids mouth if they keep saying “Shut up,” you teach them not to use it. It is the SAME THING.

ALT TEXT FOR SCREEN READERS:

Heading: ratings and reviews

Title: inappropriate language

One star

December 28

Review: Our son is three and nonverbal, we downloaded this app to use as iPad as an AAC device. At first glance, it’s very user-friendly and our son picked up the layout quickly and was able to use this as a form of communication. The reason I would give it one star and quite frankly no stars if that was an option is because there’s no way to hide inappropriate language like “shut up“, which should not be accessible to a three year-old on top of other words that you cannot remove. When I reached out to support their response was they don’t feel like we should limit words to children, which I agree with but having my three-year-old constantly hit the shut up button during school is not appropriate and there’s no way to remove it so don’t waste your money just spend the money on a different app that lets you have access to editing words to make sure that your children don’t get in trouble because while language is extremely important and I don’t wanna limit, I also don’t want to have my child constantly scolded because an app thinks it’s OK for a three-year-old to use the word shut up. We will not be renewing our monthly subscription and will look for a more accessible app that supports positive language reinforcement.

Developer response:

January 6

If every nonverbal kid in your school is given a tablet and the same AAC app regardless of their personal needs and abilities, every adult who regularly interacts with those kids needs to have spent, at minimum, an hour playing around with the same version of that app so they know what it can and can’t do and how the buttons work.

Especially because I keep seeing scenarios where the communication options a kid uses at home are different than the ones provided and enforced at school. In those cases especially, it is your job as their teacher to understand the technology better than they do so you can teach its use.

If you wouldn’t duct tape someone’s mouth shut for repeatedly making annoying noises with it, you shouldn’t take a kid’s AAC device when they choose to use it in a way that annoys you.

I still believe in the above when other students are distracted. As much as possible, the consequence for that should be the same you’d give to another kid being disruptive and noisy in class.

If you want kids to feel secure using a specific AAC method to ask for help or talk about their feelings, access to that method cannot be contingent on good behavior.

I mentioned ONCE in a group about wanting to go into assisted living and looking into it. Immediately got dog piled by people saying to absolutely not go into assisted living because itd “take away my autonomy” and “I should just live with others for as long as possible.”

Assisted living, group homes, guardianship, whatever, can very much mean that someone actually GAINS autonomy. And independence. The goal is for quality of life. We should be focusing on quality of life instead of what YOU want. What YOU want as a lower support needs person because you’ve heard bad stories.

Higher support needs people often don’t get the decision. It’s life or death for them. Y’all HAVE to realize that.

Stop forcing your narrative on young higher support needs people who are looking into different options for their care. Yes. It’s SCARY to be put in a bad situation, but often times it’s trial and error for us. Y’all HAVE to realize that. We don’t have the privilege to pick and choose between if we just live independently or go in a group home. It’s group home, or death, or living in a fucked up, maybe even abusive situation already.

many autistic people need tasks broken into tiny steps to understand how do something

many autistic people need positive feedback in way that other think condescending

many autistic people childish and have childish interests

many autistic people have to always be supervised never alone because of risk of hurt self or get in dangerous situations

many autistic people have violent messy big meltdown, even in public

many autistic people struggle with speech always will maybe rest of life (non verbal, semi verbal, demi verbal etc.)

AND most of these autistic people higher support needs + level 2 & 3 autism, don’t forget or ignore us. can’t say “that not true just stereotypes” when it just symptom and sign of higher support needs higher level autism.

you want to raise awareness for lower support needs level 1 autism and yes good ok!!!! but not this way where throw HrSN level 2+3 autistic under bus.

(here using 'voice' to mean both an aac program and an aac device.)

Your voice used to be free but now is behind a paywall. Your voice only runs on a subscription payment model and doesn't offer outright purchasing. The cost of outright purchasing your voice is several hundred dollars. Your voice runs ads. Your voice has planned obsolescence. Your voice ran out of funding and is no longer being updated. Your voice is free but requires coding knowledge to create. Your voice can only be used and accessed with a wifi connection. The people most trained to help you with your voice are expensive or unavailable specialists. You require additional aids to use your voice that are difficult to get and/or expensive.

your voice is dependant on how well a large internet server is running (not your own personal wifi, AWS)

Normalize using small words with aac.

Normalize not bullying or making fun of someone who is verbose when able to speak but isn't when using aac.

Normalize being patient for an aac speaker to type.

also you are never going to be safe for people for whom english is their second language. if someone clarifies their meaning and apologises and you can't accept that over the original wording then don't bother pretending to be autism friendly.

and like part of my autism is that i become convinced that the way i interpret words is the way that they're meant. my autism is disabling to my communication abilities. i have poor emotional regulation, i jump to conclusions. a lot of my reactions are informed by prior negative experiences. i can and probably have been overly defensive in the past.

and i've been misinterpreted so much and had my words picked over and mocked for saying the wrong things and mocked for being unable to say anything at all and it always feels devastating. it's ironic that the same disability that has me treated poorly would have me react poorly to a similar situation, but that's just how it is.