Latest / AAC Access All Areas / What if engagement isn't as we expect?
Transcript
- Ruth Jones: Hello and welcome to another episode of AAC, Access All Areas. I'm Ruth Jones. Ali Battye (she/her): and I'm Ali Batty. And our question today is, what if the child doesn't engage in AAC in the way that we expect? Ruth Jones: Yeah, we had a few people, I think, coming in with some questions and comments on this one around, what if they're not looking? What if they're not necessarily using it as we expect? And for anyone listening and not watching, I was very much in inverted commas there because that can quite often be a, you know, a phrase that we hear people saying, isn't it? Or they're not really using it properly or they're not using it how we expect. So I think it's really important we get into this, because I think we just had a little quick chat, didn't we? And there's that key message is just because an individual isn't engaging with AAC in the way we might expect, it doesn't mean it's not the right tool. It can take time, as we've talked about, to, I think, not only teach that, but also help people see the power of AAC for themselves, see the power of having their own voice. on that little bumpy road to getting there, we can see some things, can't we, that might not necessarily lend itself to speaking adults around them, seeing the value in how they're interacting with those things. Ali Battye (she/her): Yes, because so often ⁓ in the past I... think it probably still happens, but it definitely happened in the past that a child will have like a trial of AAC, particularly high tech AAC. So that might be an app on an iPad or it might even be, you know, really specialist dedicated device that gets loaned for a while. And that trial might be, you know, between two weeks or a couple of months. And the child almost like has to prove Ruth Jones: you Ali Battye (she/her): that they are in inverted commas again, ready for AAC. ⁓ And I think Ruth, we've both had experiences with the luxury of independent practice where often the family have purchased an iPad. So that is just available for the child all the time and an unlimited sort of trial period. That sometimes it does take months for a child to kind of work out. Ruth Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): what it might offer them in terms of their communication. Ruth Jones: Yeah, definitely. I think sometimes if we don't, you know, we've talked about it before, haven't we? How tiny the percentages of children where you give them a device and within a couple of weeks or a month, you're suddenly seeing all of these words coming out that nobody knew that they had in their head. But actually for a lot of other children, the most part of children, that process of teaching language does take time. And I think particularly when we think about our autistic children, we are considering the load that they carry just by being awake and present in the world around them with the extra sensory processing that they're doing, the language processing that they have to do, and all the other things that their kind of brain power is taken up with dealing with that sometimes modeling AAC can... Ali Battye (she/her): Yes, yes. Ruth Jones: can be the straw that breaks the camel's back a little bit sometimes, can't it? Where it's like, not today, not now. And how that shows up, it doesn't necessarily mean that the tool is not right for the child. But in that moment, it's too much. Ali Battye (she/her): Yes. They don't have the capacity. Yeah. So, I mean, we all have fluctuating capacity, don't we? Like, depending on how well we've slept, where our emotions are at, how important relationships are going, our hormonal fluctuations, just, you know, lots and lots of different potential variations on our energy and our mood and our capacity to learn. I think that is really ⁓ enhanced for a lot of autistic children who might have really quite significant sensory regulation challenges and often around things that we don't even think about. So, you know, it's often vestibular and it's often proprioception. So vestibular is just the innate knowledge of where we are in relation to gravity. So I know at the moment that I'm sitting fairly upright and I'm actually sitting on a therapy ball. But if I were to, you know, my weight were to shift, I would have a good sense like, ⁓ hang on, I'm leaning over to one side. I've got the choice of correcting myself there. But if your vestibular system is not ⁓ great and you don't have that automatic awareness, then a lot of your sort of like effort might go into maintaining your posture or working out where you are in space. And similarly proprioceptive ⁓ feedback. that is, you know, at the moment, my feet are flat on the floor. I can feel my bum on this therapy ball. I've got my elbows on the table. So I've got a fairly good awareness of where I am in space. But if that wasn't, if I wasn't getting those signals so strongly, it would be a bit like free falling, like I've just jumped out of an aeroplane and I'm in free fall. So a bit like that sensation when you're falling asleep and you like suddenly jerk awake because you were just having a falling experience. That is when our ⁓ proprioceptive system is shutting down. And so it is that sort of like disorientating if your proprioceptive system is not working brilliantly. So yeah, the point that I'm trying to make, I guess, is is if our brains are trying to work out things that we take for granted, like where we are in relation to space, ⁓ then there is less capacity for processing language and learning a new skill, like working out how does language work on an AAC system when you're either using symbols or you're working out typing. That's a lot for a brain to sort of cope with. Ruth Jones: It really is, isn't it? And I think when we also, I'm thinking about some specifically, some of the children, young people that I'm working with at the moment, they've got their own internal stuff that they're experiencing, that their cognitive load is taken up with. We also can see challenges with executive functioning skills like planning and organizing. So actually, if in a therapy session, there is an activity that requires some level of planning and some level of organizing on their part, whether that's a puzzle that they've got to complete or, you know, sort of an activity. Even something that we might conceive as quite simple, like, you know, the spinning cogs that go down a, like a sort of threaded pole, you still got to get it in the right place to put it on the top. there's a lot of skills going on there. So if you've got a child who experiences difficulties with gross and fine motor and also with those thinking skills, there is quite a lot and say it's one of those days where then the weather's not been preferable and actually like at the minute, you know, where we go from one day where it's like boiling hot to raining, there are lots of extra transitions and change that might happen. So that child might have yesterday gone in in shorts, today they had to be back in their trousers and actually they prefer being in shorts, but it was too cold for them today so they've had their trousers on. and that's offering a different tactile experience on their sensory system that they're dealing with. They might not have slept so well. And so I think we might then see going in to do some AAC work, there's an innate demand in therapy. I think no matter how child-led you are, there is sort of an innate, there's a person here and they're here to see you. They might not expect you to do anything, but it's... Ali Battye (she/her): Mmm. Ruth Jones: it's them and you and that's kind of what we're here for. So there's a bit of a shift and a bit of a shift in the demand that happens when a therapist is around. And I think there's all these little things that then can mean when we come in and have our activities to do and we have our like AAC that we're modeling, it sometimes can just be a bit too much for a child to deal with that extra bit of noise because you're doing some voice output modeling or your voice and I've definitely had children and I'm thinking of one particular child that I've worked with for a long time would just swipe, swipe the board, swipe the paper, push the AAC device back to me. And I was still going in every week to work with this child probably for about a year until they started touching the device and even tolerating that device on their table. And I just let them lead. Ali Battye (she/her): you Ruth Jones: honored, respected when it was too much and they were pushing things away, I would just pick it up and pop it on my knee and I would then reduce my modeling down and be like, and I would even model like, it's too much, Ruth, get it away. And they would kind of look and be like, ⁓ okay, yeah, you know, not, don't throw that on the floor. I'm kind of validating the way that they're communicating as they do at that point in time. And I think it's something, isn't it, that we have to recognize and really tune into, which again is the luxury of Ali Battye (she/her): Yeah. Bye. you Ruth Jones: longer term therapy that you might get in independent practice, you might get if you're a therapist employed for one particular school and you're just in that school with a sort of smaller caseload, ⁓ that you really can do that over a period of time, can't you? And you can respect and honor that communication, meaning it's too much right now. It doesn't mean stop this tool. It's not effective for me. Ali Battye (she/her): Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. Yes, yes, because we're still building that relationship as well, aren't we? In the early days of AAC implementation, think children have to... ⁓ learn that we will respect their rhythms of connection, that we haven't got this set agenda that we're going to insist on, that we will adapt. So if they're not into the iPad-based AAC today, then we're still responsive to their whole multimodal communication, whether that is the way they're moving Ruth Jones: you Ali Battye (she/her): their body, the noises that they're making, they might be using some gestures or some hand leading, they might have more tolerance sometimes for paper-based AAC because it hasn't got the voice output. So I think it takes time for a child to realise, ⁓ okay, or he or they are going to meet me where I am depending on what I need in that moment and they are genuinely Ruth Jones: No. Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): there for me. They're not there to make me perform. And that is going to take time, isn't it? Particularly if a child has a history of more sort of like compliance-based therapy or if they're in a school, like school is very compliance-based. So sometimes therapy in itself can be a very different experience for them if it is truly child-led and play-based because they need time to realise to sort of like work out, ⁓ hang on, this is really different. They do genuinely honour my modes of communication and my fluctuating capacity. And so, yeah, we can't take that as a given. think that sense of safety is not a given when you're a non-speaking person in this world. And, you know, it's taken me... ⁓ Ruth Jones: Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): a while to appreciate that actually, that you know if you are a non-speaking person in our speech orientated world you are constantly coming up against prejudice like people assuming that you're non-thinking, that non-speaking means non-thinking and people ignoring you and not treating you as though you are a sentient being, which is horrific isn't it? But I think that's Sometimes what we are building in the early days of supporting a child, just building that, no, we see you, we hear you, we all need you. Ruth Jones: ⁓ Yeah, and I think that's where I was reflecting after I'd done a recent assessment actually where I'd gone to see a non-speaking child ⁓ preschool age and they didn't want to engage with me which was absolutely fine, had zero expectation, I'd just taken a few bits based on some of their interests that their parents had shared but what then I was doing was then having a conversation with their parents about, you know, what does routines look like? Like what kind of communication goes on? And I found it this really tricky thing that I was very acutely aware that the child was in the space and we were talking about them and about what life looks like and about communication, but they were present and they weren't engaging with me. So sometimes if I'm having a conversation, say you go into a classroom with a teacher and the teacher will start talking to you and I'll include the child. kind of in that like, you know, if they're saying, ⁓ well this happened this morning and I might then look at the child and say, ⁓ so it sounds like this morning when you came in, like you weren't sure about this or that. And I think it's so easy and quick, isn't it? That I think like parents and professionals, we don't necessarily consider that too much. I think particularly for high support needs children and it doesn't mean. Well, no, it does mean sometimes I suppose that we're not aware of our own internal prejudices about that. And so we will say we would have conversations and be talking around a child. And even though we're not naming, ⁓ well, it's all right, they don't understand. So we'll talk about it. Ultimately, that is kind of what's going on. And so I think it's something I definitely challenge myself to reflect on and think on. Ali Battye (she/her): you Yeah. Ruth Jones: and do better but sometimes it still can be quite tricky because you know in that situation I'm in the family's home like we're all in the lounge yeah and so you're having these these conversations and also the child hasn't interacted with me so as far as I'm concerned they are not part of this conversation but they're in the room we're talking about them it's it's a strange one isn't it and I think that is so important when we're thinking about Ali Battye (she/her): Mm-mm. Yes. Yes. Ruth Jones: non and minimally speaking children that we do really, we don't just need to presume the potential to use the AAC, we need to presume that they've got thoughts in their mind and they have capacity to listen and understand the things going on around them. And I think it's one of my big bug bears with the whole keyword assessment that used to be like bread and butter, particularly in learning disabilities, you know, so you'd test Ali Battye (she/her): and Ruth Jones: an individual's understanding by putting out maybe like two or three objects. You might have a teddy and a spoon and a cup and then you'd sit there and say, give me the cup and they'd give you the cup and you'd be like, why? What keyword? They say, give me the teddy and the cup and they could give you the two keywords. Give me the, you know, and you might add a few more objects in and then you'd ask them to give you three things and then they couldn't do it. You'd like, they only understand two keywords. And I used to regularly think about Ali Battye (she/her): you Ruth Jones: children as keyword level, what are their keyword level. I just think now when I look back, think like, ⁓ my days, like how limiting is that? Like the therapy. Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): Mm. Yes, yes. Yes, because we were being really unnatural with that as well, weren't we? We were withdrawing all of the multimodal support that we naturally provide when we're communicating with anyone. So in those assessments, like we would be trained not to point or eye point, like not to look at the thing that we've asked for, not to use any gestures or Makaton signs. So it was so unnatural and like you say, just so limiting and quite insulting really, and didn't take into consideration Ruth Jones: WAH! Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): a tool fluctuating capacity that, you know, one day a child might be able to do that because their auditory processing is pretty good, but another day they might be having lots of problems with their auditory processing. So they might be struggling to hear our voice against the background noise or, mean, you know, I'm not an expert in auditory processing, but the sort of like background reading that I have done suggests that, you know, sometimes children might be hearing Ruth Jones: more. Ali Battye (she/her): words and they're all like fuzzy and glued together or sometimes the same word that we assume that they would be able to pick out say the word cup in a sentence and they're not able to pick out that word from the words around it or recognize that cup in one sentence you know like give me the cup is the same word as drinking from the cup because those are quite advanced ⁓ you know auditory processing language processing skills so it was just so much more complex than we thought it was and just frankly insulting for those children to appraise them in that way and use our little checklist and mark them off on a checklist. Ruth Jones: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and I think alongside that we'd give them a pex book and so basically we weren't really talking to them because we didn't think they'd understand and we were only teaching communication as a behaviour reward, you know, whereas I think hopefully on the most part now within our profession, I say this, I still think I live in a little bubble of wonderfulness where everyone I connect with is like-minded and actually I know that there are still therapists who probably do do keyword level assessments and would think about a pex book for a child. But I think the kind of the limitations now, when I look back on some of those children that I worked with, you know, 10, 12 years ago, where would have done a keyword assessment, would have done a pex book. And the fact was that it wasn't about presuming they had potential to understand. And so what we ended up with was much less. joyful interaction and much more about when I'm giving them an instruction I have to keep it really simple and that basically means I just don't talk to kids that much the rest of the time you know we might sing and we play and we use loads of movement but the language has to be minimal because they can't process it and now I think gosh like I have full-on like monologue narratives that I give children in a therapy session which are full of lots of language Ali Battye (she/her): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ruth Jones: But again, attuning to them based on whether that feels like the right kind of day, the right kind of child, the right kind of mood and moment. So I think with AAC, it is kind of recognizing that a child might not just get going with it. They might push it away at times, but it doesn't mean that it's not the right thing. They might also not look. That's something that I think we get quite a lot is, but they're not looking at it. And actually, Ali Battye (she/her): Yeah. Ruth Jones: until kids see the value of AAC, chances are they won't really know much about it or they look at it and go woohoo an iPad, realise all it's got on it is an AAC app and go ⁓ don't understand what that's for because I can't now you know do all these things that I would normally do. And again that's individualised isn't it as to what other things the device does as well as communication but if they're not really looking at it, it doesn't necessarily mean that they don't have capacity Ali Battye (she/her): you Ruth Jones: learn about it and that does take time. Ali Battye (she/her): way. Yes, yes. And so many of the children that we support will use their peripheral vision as well. So they don't, their looking doesn't necessarily look really obvious. They might not be like turning their head and obviously looking at it, but they might just be catching it in the corner of their eye ⁓ and taking in that information in ways that are not obvious to us. Something else that, ⁓ you know, we hear a lot is they're just stimming on it, they're just pressing Ruth Jones: Thank Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): in the same button or they're just going through all of the buttons on a page or they're just like swiping randomly and yes they are doing all of those things and it's not just doing that it's a yay they're staring on it they're exploring on it they're pressing all the buttons because that is how we learn I mean I don't know about you Ruth but I am not a read the instructions before I take a new gadget out of the box kind of a person ⁓ I would much rather play with it and press the buttons and try and work it out that way. ⁓ And children are brilliant at doing that and that's what we need to give time for. So I'm just thinking of a little one who's probably the most ⁓ recent ⁓ child that I have started working with and introduced AAC to. And he is definitely in that phase of pressing all the buttons and sometimes he's like ⁓ pressing them so quickly that they don't even get to say the whole word, but he is enjoying that power of getting voice output and playing with sounds and almost doing a sort of like rhythmic play with the sounds, which is exactly what we see with our speaking children in the early stages of language development that they will babble and they'll play with words and they'll do silly things with words and just enjoy that. power of doing stuff with language. Ruth Jones: Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely. I think for me, that's I'm always intrigued. I'm curious as to what what words they are playing about with. And, you know, I've got some children where they would often pick the facial expression symbols. And I think it was that they were quite interested in that particular the facial expressions and or got a couple of children actually whose color preferences are red. And so they would put Ali Battye (she/her): Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Ruth Jones: all the symbols just play lots of the symbol and it was all all red symbols. And what's really interesting, particularly actually thinking about one of those children is that they were putting lots of repeated words, you know, constantly, then you press it and it goes like again, again, again, again, again, again, again, it goes over and over again. But then more recently, they've done that with the word travel and it was around the school holidays, like before the holiday and after the holiday. Ali Battye (she/her): you you. Thank you Ruth Jones: And it's just been quite interesting because it feels like it shifted from this, I like the color, I like the shape that I'm seeing, I like the feedback to this very specific thing about traveling around a school holiday. They did it in my session before and the teacher said that when they got back from the holiday, they were doing it and kind of liaising with their parents, just getting curious as to, is this stimmy or is this actually a little bit of intentional trying to tell us about travel? Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Yes, because it can be many things, can't it? For the same child, they can be stimming on it and they can be exploring the vocabulary and they can be exploring the sounds in our language and they can be expressing some meanings that they're thinking about or favourite things. So the child that I was thinking about ⁓ yesterday, he was exploring, I think it was the breakfast page because it had more Ruth Jones: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): on it and peanut butter and he explored all of the buttons but he settled on Marmite, Marmite, Marmite, Marmite and so I wrote that up in my notes because it was a preschool visit and the mum messaged me afterwards and said that that had just made her giggle because he's really been exploring that home so there's something about Marmite that is meaningful for him and it might be he loves the sound of that word it might be that is his favourite so it could be either or both of those things. Ruth Jones: Thank Ali Battye (she/her): and the same child can be doing those explorations on many different levels from moment to moment. ⁓ So I'm thinking about another child who ⁓ was really ⁓ watching the symbols and the words appear on the sentence bar. So ⁓ exploring and ⁓ Usain colors made me think of this. So very, very deliberately, thoughtfully going through the different colors and then watching them appear on the sentence bar and then hitting the sentence bar so that it said them all again and doing the same sequence a couple of times, but then mixing it up. So it is just that like really interesting play with language and in that they could be, you know, working out, when I hit that button, it says the same thing in the same way every time. Cause that can be a really nice thing about iPad AAC that you've got a speech engine that is very consistent. Ruth Jones: and Ali Battye (she/her): So when I say blue, it will be different every time. It might be blue, blue, blue. And when Ruth says blue, she'll say it with a different voice. so it can be really difficult for children with auditory processing challenges to work out that that is the same word each time it's spoken. Whereas on an AAC device, it's just easier to work out, okay, it does the same thing every time. So I think it's the same word every time. you know, loads and loads of different things that children are probably working out and putting together in their heads around language. Ruth Jones: Yeah. And I think it just made me think, you know, we were talking earlier about the level of cognitive load and actually even just starting to understand that like I pushed this, something happens visually, like that usually the cell that you've tapped changes color. The icon symbol then appears up in the sentence bar. Like you press it, the sentence bar lights up or, you know, like the word is highlighted as it's reading it along. There is a lot of kind of visual and cognitive process that goes on. Ali Battye (she/her): Yeah. Ruth Jones: when using AAC and so I think it's really about not diminishing or minimizing when we do see children starting to explore it in that way and I was talking to a teacher just a couple of weeks ago and I actually set them the goal of saying can you please make sure that this child has their AAC without any expectation, without any specific focus on lesson vocab just to explore for at least five minutes in their day. Ali Battye (she/her): you Yeah. Ruth Jones: You know, it's quite a complex classroom situation. There are a few other children who are using AAC and devices and they're doing incredible things in that classroom. I love going in there. It's like just a bit of joy, you know, where they're just so on board and really want to make it work. And so they're really working hard on their modelling skills as a team and they're kind of embedding it and integrating it into their sort of sessions and the, I say lessons. teacher is very fluid and flexible and very child led, it's lovely. But it's been integrated, but also then thinking about those ⁓ times where a child can just have it and just natter away to themselves. And I think that's something, isn't it, that maybe then people don't quite know how to respond when we see that exploration of vocabulary. And I will sometimes say to an adult communication partner, think about if that child was verbal. So if you have a child who is speaking and who is babbling and it's in the middle of a lesson, what would you say to them and how would you support that? And think about the same response for our AAC speakers because it's a similar thing and it might be, we're talking about this now, we can talk about that after when it's finished. Ali Battye (she/her): No. Ruth Jones: and it might be, ⁓ you're really thinking about that, that sounds so fun. It's time to do whatever it is and it depends on the different classes doesn't it? Because in some classes you might have an AAC user that starts talking about that and suddenly, what tangent? Now the whole class is talking about what the AAC user is talking about. So I think it depends on your environment doesn't it? But I think really ⁓ supporting children when they're doing things that we might not using it in the proper way, it's actually Ali Battye (she/her): you Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ruth Jones: exploration with words and so how do we support them and it kind of takes me ⁓ to well in fact it's taken me to a couple of different places that but it goes back to that sort of honouring doesn't it honouring communication and ⁓ how a child is interacting and I work with some quite established AAC users as well as some who are new and ⁓ I was thinking about a child when we think about what does engagement look like or what if they're not engaging with it and I'm would go and see a young person and some weeks we have a session and he will come in and we tend to sort of end up watching some videos or playing some games and we're having conversations around sort of teenage things and like bodily changes and puberty. We're also having some conversations about disability identity. But this particular young person sometimes I'll be, you know, we get on really well. I've known them for years. He will pick up his AAC device and frisbee it. across the sensory room if I start modeling and he's not in the mood for because basically that's his way of saying I don't want to talk to you today or something come on and I'm not feeling quite right I need to settle into being in this space with you before you start chatting to me and I might then just sit alongside him while we kind of co-regulate and I'll be like ⁓ bit much today huh let's just have some quiet time and we kind of regulate together and then I might get the AAC tool Ali Battye (she/her): Amen. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Ruth Jones: and just have it alongside and just see if he wants to engage or not with some of that. And so I think if a child is pushing it away, is kind of not engaged, there are moments where you just have to be at peace with that, don't you? And that can feel a bit uncomfortable because you think, I'm here to teach the AAC and that's what I'm doing. So they're not doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): Yes, yes, yes, yes. And it's counterproductive, isn't it? If we start trying to push it, it becomes completely counterproductive that then that is almost like a stick to beat that child with, that they see that as a, ⁓ this person comes in and they're really rigid ⁓ and they have to do this. And you've taken all of the joy out of it that way. Ruth Jones: Yeah, definitely. Ali Battye (she/her): I always like to just think like follow the joy. So if you ever are feeling a bit like lost or stuck with AAC implementation, whether whether you're a speech and language therapist or a teacher or a parent or anybody else, if you are feeling, oh, we seem to have like hit a bit of a brick wall with this, just go back to the joy, like follow the joy. What is what is that child or that young person? What lights them up? What do they love to do? You know, in their hours of of leisure, what would they seek out and, you know, love to do for, you know, hours at a time or, you know, it might not be quite hours at the time, but what really does float their boat? And just go back to that and you can even take the AAC out of the picture for a little bit and just focus on connecting and sharing the moment and really appreciating their sources of joy. And, you know, using language like, ⁓ this is special or this feels good or I like it here or whatever but language just to honour what they are enjoying in the moment and you know that just that feeling of we are here together and I do not need you to perform in any particular way I think that is a really good thing to keep returning to when you feel as though ⁓ we're in a bit of a lull at the moment. Ruth Jones: and Ali Battye (she/her): maybe not enjoying their AAC so much. So yeah, let's take it back to basics and follow the joy. Ruth Jones: with them. Yeah, definitely. I'm thinking about following the joy. We usually end with a joyful little glimmer, don't we? What is your glimmer that you'd like to share today? Ali Battye (she/her): ⁓ do you know Ruth, this week it's really hard to choose. So I might have to have a couple or even three if I'm allowed three, if we've got time. We'll take it in turns so I don't completely dominate this. So my first one is a child. So I've got this ancient app on my iPad called Pog, but it is a brilliant app. It's like this little animation of an alien little green person. Ruth Jones: Ha ha! ⁓ glimmer away. This is the best fit, isn't it? This thing's got all the lovely stuff. Ali Battye (she/her): tell the person to carry out actions. So it's got lots of options and you can press the button and it makes Pog like eat or dance or throw the ball or whatever it is. And this child loves this app. And so we've like had some lovely connection over this app. And this week I was across the room. So he had taken my iPad and moved across the room. And I just was like, right, okay, yep. He wants to sort of like have control over the iPad without any interference. from me so I couldn't see the screen but because we have played with that app so much I kind of can recognise which animation he's chosen so I heard this and knew it was the eat one. So I started like acting that out alongside his little face completely lit up like he was so delighted. And so we went through like loads of different actions and he was looking to me to act it out. And I was like doing my best ⁓ improv ⁓ work in this moment. And ⁓ my God, it was just delightful. You know, when you're just, you're just in the zone and just enjoying being together and his face was just an absolute joy. felt like it was was me being plugged into like ⁓ you know an electrical supply of joy like I was just zing at the end of that session. So yeah that's that's that's my one my first glimmer. How about you Ruth? Ruth Jones: Yeah, mine is, it's kind of a funny one really, but it's a child that I, this child is very, we experience a lot of fluctuating capacity with this child and a lot of kind of with that then fluctuating engagement with AAC and the team that are working with them in class has been really kind of trying to offer AAC, have it available. And when I got there for my session, they said, ⁓ we've had to put it in the cupboard because we didn't know how to deal with it. And immediately I went, ⁓ that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. But they were doing like their morning routine, their morning greeting. And this child kept navigating into my phrases, swear words, was swearing repeatedly. And they were kind of then saying like navigating back out and saying that we don't talk like, you know, it's not expected language for our classroom. and the child kept going back in and they said they just sort of kept trying to deal with it and then they were like we now don't know what where to go next so they said we just put it away and we kind of had a little reflect on it like what would you what how would you normally manage that with a child but they were saying like normally a child would be quite dysregulated if you're getting that language and so they'd probably be taking them maybe for a little movement break for a little they often do like walking out in their garden or they'd go and like do trumpets though Ali Battye (she/her): you Ruth Jones: They said, we just didn't know what to do because this child just seemed so calm, but was just Effin and Jeffin all over the place. And I just thought, one, I you know what the curiosity play out and we came in and said, actually were they quite dysregulated and it just didn't look like it. And are we missing a really big part of their dysregulation because we're perceiving this calm on the outside, but actually internally there's a bit of wizziness going on. But. Ali Battye (she/her): Good Ruth Jones: Yeah, it was just so beautiful because they don't often use their AAC in class, so I thought how powerful! Ali Battye (she/her): Right, yes. Yes, and it's you know, it is quite a common scenario, isn't it for for a first word to be a swear word? You know, I I've got a friend, Kate Carrier, who is an AAC user, and she wrote a play about ⁓ her first AAC experience, high tech AAC experience. And the first word she used was shit and her speech and language therapist taught her shit. ⁓ And that was her way in. Like she absolutely loved the power of that. Ruth Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): another child that I've supported and you know, he has a handful of spoken words and one of them is shit. So it is like, it is the power of, ⁓ God, I've just given our podcast an X rating or something, haven't I? It could have been worse, the word could have been slightly worse. But I know we, you know, we have a tendency in our culture to go, ⁓ no, and panic when children swear. But honestly, children swear, don't they? I remember a time when my daughter was struggling with her shoelaces. Ruth Jones: Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): and said TWAT, like really, really casually. So all children do, like, do swear and we need to sort of like apply the same expectations to AAC using children. And just because it's easier to shut them up, that you can take their AAC away, doesn't mean that that is the right solution. I always use that analogy of like, well, would you sell a tape a child's mouth up if they were? Are we still in the era Ruth Jones: Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): that we would wash their mouths out with soap and water? No. Ruth Jones: No, I think that's it. it was, was for me, it was like, was really, you know, like when it was an AAC user, feel as though we're always learning, aren't we? And there's communication partners, like that child's the only AAC user in that class. So they don't have any other high tech AAC. They haven't had any historically. So there's lots of learning that they're doing around these things. And so in that moment, when they said they put it away, I immediately got, ⁓ Ali Battye (she/her): Thank you. and in Ruth Jones: And then they said why and I thought, ⁓ and they kind of explained we did try, but then we didn't know. And so, you know, like it gives us something to, you know, bit of a curve ball. How can we handle that differently next time? But it was a real glimmer for me because I thought what beautiful, spontaneous use of the AAC. And I'll be really interested to see what I go in next week if they've had any more of that repeating of that language. Yeah. Ali Battye (she/her): I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, yes, yes, we look forward to the next instalment. So Ruth, if we've got time, ⁓ my glimmer, I've got two from this morning. One was a child that I've been supporting for quite some time and we are exploring super core. Like he knows Vocochat inside out, he's a gestalt language processor, but he's definitely referential and potentially stage four, as in, you know, he can combine words to make novel phrases. So I'm really modeling a lot in super core with core words. ⁓ And today he pulled out Dear Zoo from my bag and we had a lovely session like reading Dear Zoo and it was a real collaborative reading a story because I would read, I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet. They sent me an and he would go, elephant. He was too and I'd say he was too big. I sent him back. So they sent me a and he would go giraffe. And we moved through this story. Must have done it five or six times. And this sort of like joy. in that of like, we're doing this together and it's so lovely. And then I could model some sort of like core phrases around it, like, I see elephant, it is big, I see giraffe, it is tall. So it just then led onto lots of other stuff, but the real glimmer was the telling the story together. It was just like such a lovely moment. then my being greedy, I'll just do one more. Also this morning, a child that I'm really focusing on literacy with because again, she knows her AAC package inside out. She has shown signs of interest in literacy in the last few months. And so we've been exploring all kinds of things around that, like familiarizing herself with letters and sounds and ⁓ sight word reading, ⁓ matching words to pictures and things like that. And today we did some typing. So we explored the letter. See and I just done like a widget sheet with five words five simple like CVC or CVCC words ⁓ on there and she has done a bit of typing in the past but we've sort of like Stopped at three words because she's lost interest will blow me. She went through the whole worksheet today and typed out five words ⁓ And she was just so pleased with herself at the end like you could just see you know when a child is just like shining with pride that they've done something. So yeah that was my that was my third one. Ruth Jones: anymore. ⁓ and what a lovely thing to think about as we kind of end off this episode is that again, where a child wasn't so interested, but then came back around to it, that fluctuating capacity doesn't mean we stop, it just means we respect and honor that child in how they're communicating each time that we're with them. So yeah, fabulous. ⁓ what a lovely way to end. Thank you so much for today, Ali. Ali Battye (she/her): and Yes. ⁓ it's always a joy, Ruth. This is something that I look forward to. Ruth Jones: Me too, me too and hopefully everyone listening enjoys it as well. In fact, cheeky plug, if anyone wants to leave reviews, we don't really know much about podcasting, do we? But I think I understand that if you get good reviews, then more people might know about your podcast. And we really hope that this is a space where people can listen and learn and reflect and share some AAC joy. So if you do enjoy listening to us, then please do kind of leave reviews and things because it will just help. more people I guess get access to AAC, access all areas. Ali Battye (she/her): Yes, and you can help shape what we cover in future episodes as well. So if you've got any questions or suggestions, we will be coming to that, won't we, in future episodes. Ruth Jones: Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. Right, thank you. Ali Battye (she/her): Thank you Ruth, have a lovely weekend.