allthingslinguistic:

I started fact-checking a book about emoji and the book was so hilaribad it turned into a thread-review. Here are some highlights: full thread-review here.

I’m not linking to the book, because no one should buy it.

@shatar-aethelwynn said in tags

#is this why people think emojis are hieroglyphs? I might be able to answer this.

I hope you don’t mind, and I’m only a linguist in a dead language (and it happens to be the right one!), but I think the constant comparison between Hieroglyphs and Emojis has something do with with both the way people view Hieroglyphs as a means of conveying meaning and how people have chosen to denigrate the use of emojis in the younger generations.

There’s a sense with the general public, usually from how they were taught about Ancient Egypt at school at an early age, that hieroglyphs are not really all that complicated. I remember distinctly being taught that they’re basically just either direct symbols of what they represent (a cat is a cat, a leaf is a leaf), or could be used to correspond to letters of the latin alphabet. The most common way I see them explained to children now is that they form sounds of words, like two signs being a bee and a leaf, and they’d make the word ‘belief’. Which is marginally better than how I was taught as a child, but still doesn’t truly capture how Old/Middle/Late Egyptian Hieroglyphs work.

Honestly, it never truly could, and I don’t expect school teachers to explain or even know how they truly work. Most people learn about Ancient Egypt from ages 8-10, and it would be truly difficult to get children to understand how there are 900+ signs, each with their own consonantal value, and the signs at the end of words aren’t even read but tell you what the word is…

But the overarching understanding, and lasting impression, people get from their school teaching is that Hieroglyphs are ‘basic’ in construction, and that the Egyptians were very good at architectural marvels but very crude linguistically. This, I fear, only gets re-enforced by the fact that we as a western society were built on the back of Classical revivalism, where the works of philosophers/poets/scholars like Socrates, Herodotus, Plato, Virgil etc, are lauded as great insights into humanity (I know a few who would disagree on a couple of those, but…as a whole, yes), but we ‘lack’ any great philosophical work or heroic epic from Ancient Egypt as a comparison. We never lost the ability to read Latin, which many of these works were translated into, and to some extent we never lost Ancient Greek either (don’t yell at me Classicists I know it’s complicated and I am a mere dumb Egyptologist 😉 ), so we never lost the ability to study and understand these works. Egyptian Hieroglyphs, however; well that’s a different story.

Now I put ‘lack’ in inverted commas as we do in fact have a good number of wisdom texts, and heroic literary tales, from Ancient Egypt, but this is yet again another place where Ancient Egypt as a civilisation has lost out because we lost the ability to read and understand the language (thanks Roman Empire!). As I said above, we never truly lost the ability to read/study the great works from Greece and Rome, however, the last hieroglyphs to be written were in 394CE. They weren’t truly known again until 1822, when Jean Francois Champollion used the Rosetta Stone as a key to their understanding. (I should point out at this point in time that 9th Century Egyptian scholars had tried, and had limited success, to decipher them using early Arabic and then another few attempts were made in the Medieval period. JFC (oh that’s a bad acronym) was the first to completely crack them)

So in truth, we’ve only had translations from about the 1830s, when we’d got a good vocabulary under our belt, that we had been able to start translating the Egyptian equivalent of Plato and Aristotle, and with Egyptian mythology and culture not so deeply intertwined with ours (hello again Classical revivalism) we don’t fully appreciate the Egyptian texts and thus they have not seeped into general consciousness as say Greek or Roman texts. Many of these texts are still being reconstructed and deciphered by Egyptologists, so unless a person has a general interest in Egyptian literature/history they’re not going to know these texts exist. You certainly won’t hear people espouse the Teachings of Amenope to sound obnoxiously clever at dinner parties, but you’ll definitely hear them talk about Euripides or Sophocles etc. (Classicists are exempt from this, but I’ve suffered too many parties where I say I’m an Egyptologist and some man tries to tell me in a dismissive tone that the Egyptians didn’t write poetry and nothing can compare to the Greeks, and I try not to think of punching him very hard with my wine glass).

Anyway, hooray the Egyptologist finally got back on track, all these factors combined make people’s awareness of the complexity of Hieroglyphs pretty low, and thus they tend to think of them as just crude symbols that are either magic/special/mystical, and have no real depth of meaning whatsoever.

Now Emojis, in some sections of society, are denigrated as a ‘crude language’ used by people who can’t be bothered to ‘speak English properly’ (we all have that one older relative who absolutely hates them). Due to them being pictoral, and as I’ve already discussed the understanding of how Hieroglyphs work is fuzzy at best, there’s an easy comparison for those who want to crap all over how the ‘youth’ communicate (see article linked at the beginning of this paragraph). To quote said article:

The Egyptians created a magnificent but static culture. They invented a superb artistic style and powerful mythology – then stuck with these for millennia. Hieroglyphs enabled them to write spells but not to develop a more flexible, questioning literary culture: they left that to the Greeks.

These jumped-up Aegean loudmouths, using an abstract non-pictorial alphabet they got from the Phoenicians, obviously and spectacularly outdid the Egyptians in their range of expression. The Greek alphabet was much more productive than all those lovely Egyptian pictures. That is why there is no ancient Egyptian Iliad or Odyssey.

Aside from what’s written above being absolute horseshit (the culture is only static to an uninformed observer) and the Phoenician alphabet actually developed from pictoral symbols initially), the article goes on to state:

After millennia of painful improvement, from illiteracy to Shakespeare and beyond, humanity is rushing to throw it all away. We’re heading back to ancient Egyptian times, next stop the stone age.

This quote sums up nicely the author’s snobbishness, complete misunderstanding, and ethnocentrism quite nicely. It’s clear he did no real research into how Hieroglyphs work before denouncing them as crude and uncivilised in order to then denounce peoples use of emojis as equally ‘uncivilised’. But his view of Hieroglyphs is shared, if less dismissively, by the majority of people. People don’t see Hieroglyphs with any sort of sophistication.

Inevitably, this sort of banal comparison leads to books like the one in the original post, which has already been skewered quite beautifully above. The book’s author has the same understanding of hieroglyphs vs emojis as most people, and therefore he attempts to construct them how one would show a child how Hieroglyphs work and fails miserably. He fails to take into account that emojis have no real grammar or syntax (hieroglyphs have both) and thus thinks that, like he believes hieroglyphs work, the reader will just reconstruct the whole syntax in their head. Where he fails is in understanding that emojis, unlike hieroglyphs, have different interpretations depending on the context and nationality of the person using them. Hieroglyphs will always give you an indication as to which word you’re reading, whereas emojis aren’t generally used to write words (unless we’re obscuring our speech/writing in code) but to complement what we’ve already written (like making innuendo and then using the eggplant emoji).

In conclusion, yes I’ve finally finished whatever this is, people’s misunderstanding of emojis is linked to how they view other pictoral languages, particularly Hieroglyphs. Since they view hieroglyphs as primitive and stunted, and hieroglyphs are also visibly pictoral, they believe that emojis are used in precisely the same way and are thus stunted and primitive and can be constructed in the same way. Fundamentally, all of this (the linked article and the book in the original post) boils down to poor understanding and research. The author could have actually asked people how they use emojis to better understand them, and probably also should have done research on how Hieroglyphs work if they’re going to make such substantive comparisons.

But it’s not as fun to deride the way language is changing if you actually do the research is it?

[This post was unwarranted, but if you liked it, feel free to buy me a Ko-Fi ♥]

tilthat:

TIL that prairie dogs have a complex language in which they can describe the size and shape of a human, the color of clothes the human is wearing, and even whether the human has a gun.

via reddit.com

Granted, whether the human is carrying a gun would likely be way more crucial information to convey than their size/shape, if you’re talking to other prairie dogs. The “even” sounds a tad off there.

witchyfaekin:

mswyrr:

favedump:

Mr. Rogers had an intentional manner of speaking to children, which his writers called “Freddish”. There were nine steps for translating into Freddish:

“State the idea you wish to express as clearly as possible, and in terms preschoolers can understand.” Example: It is dangerous to play in the street. 

“Rephrase in a positive manner,” as in It is good to play where it is safe.

“Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet make subtle distinctions and need to be redirected to authorities they trust.” As in, “Ask your parents where it is safe to play.”

“Rephrase your idea to eliminate all elements that could be considered prescriptive, directive, or instructive.” In the example, that’d mean getting rid of “ask”: Your parents will tell you where it is safe to play.

“Rephrase any element that suggests certainty.” That’d be “will”: Your parents can tell you where it is safe to play.

“Rephrase your idea to eliminate any element that may not apply to all children.” Not all children know their parents, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play.

“Add a simple motivational idea that gives preschoolers a reason to follow your advice.” Perhaps: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is good to listen to them.

“Rephrase your new statement, repeating the first step.” “Good” represents a value judgment, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them.

“Rephrase your idea a ﬁnal time, relating it to some phase of development a preschooler can understand.” Maybe: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.

Mr. Rogers Had a Simple Set of Rules for Talking to Children – The Atlantic

Rogers brought this level of care and attention not just to granular
details and phrasings, but the bigger messages his show would send.
Hedda Sharapan, one of the staff members at Fred Rogers’s production
company, Family Communications, Inc., recalls Rogers once halted taping
of a show when a cast member told the puppet Henrietta Pussycat not to
cry; he interrupted shooting to make it clear that his show would never
suggest to children that they not cry.

In working on the show,
Rogers interacted extensively with academic researchers. Daniel R.
Anderson, a psychologist formerly at the University of Massachusetts who
worked as an advisor for the show, remembered a speaking trip to
Germany at which some members of an academic audience raised questions
about Rogers’s direct approach on television. They were concerned that
it could lead to false expectations from children of personal support
from a televised figure. Anderson was impressed with the depth of
Rogers’s reaction, and with the fact that he went back to production
carefully screening scripts for any hint of language that could confuse
children in that way.

In fact, Freddish and Rogers’s philosophy of
child development is actually derived from some of the leading
20th-century scholars of the subject. In the 1950s, Rogers, already well
known for a previous children’s TV program, was pursuing a graduate
degree at The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary when a teacher there
recommended he also study under the child-development expert Margaret
McFarland at the University of Pittsburgh. There he was exposed to the
theories of legendary faculty, including McFarland, Benjamin Spock, Erik
Erikson, and T. Berry Brazelton. Rogers learned the highest standards
in this emerging academic field, and he applied them to his program for
almost half a century.

This is one of the reasons Rogers was so
particular about the writing on his show. “I spent hours talking with
Fred and taking notes,” says Greenwald, “then hours talking with
Margaret McFarland before I went off and wrote the scripts. Then Fred
made them better.” As simple as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood looked and sounded, every detail in it was the product of a tremendously careful, academically-informed process.

That idea is REALLY worth learning to talk to the kiddos. Mr. Rogers still has a lot to teach us–especially for our own kids.

brighteyedbadwolf:

samayla:

coffee-alien:

“Imagine having a child that refuses to hug you or even look you in the eyes”

Imagine being shamed, as a child, for not showing affection in a way that is unnatural or even painful for you. Imagine being forced, as a child, to show affection in a way that is unnatural or even painful for you. Imagine being told, as a child, that your ways of expressing affection weren’t good enough. Imagine being taught, as a child, to associate physical affection with pain and coercion.

As a preschool special ed para, this is very important to me. All my kids have their own ways of showing affection that are just as meaningful to them as a hug or eye contact is to you or me.

One gently squeezes my hand between both of his palms as he says “squish.” I reciprocate. When he looks like he’s feeling sad or lost, I ask if I can squish him, and he will show me where I can squish him. Sometimes it’s almost like a hug, but most of the time, it’s just a hand or an arm I press between my palms. Then he squishes my hand in return, says “squish,” and moves on. He will come ask for squishes now, when he recognizes that he needs them.

Another boy smiles and sticks his chin out at me, and if he’s really excited, he’ll lean his whole body toward me. The first time he finally won a game at circle time, he got so excited he even ran over and bumped chins with me. He now does it when he sees me outside of school too. I stick out my chin to acknowledge him, and he grins and runs over and I lean down for a chin bump.

Yet another child swings my hand really fast. At a time when another child would be seeking a hug, she stands beside me and holds my hand, and swings it back and forth, with a smile if I’m lucky. The look on her face when I initiate the hand swinging is priceless.

Another one bumps his hip against mine when he walks by in the hallway or on the playground, or when he gets up after I’m done working with him. No eye contact, no words, but he goes out of his way to “crash” into me, and I tell him that it’s good to see him. He now loves to crash into me when I’m least expecting it. He doesn’t want anything, really. Just a bump to say “Hi, I appreciate you’re here.” And when he’s upset and we have to take a break, I’ll bump him, ask if he needs to take a walk, and we just go wander for a bit and discuss whatever’s wrong, and he’s practically glued to my side. Then one more bump before we go back into the room to face the problem.

Moral of the story is, alternative affection is just as valid and vitally important as traditional affection. Reciprocating alternative affection is just as valid and vitally important as returning a hug. That is how you build connections with these children.

This is so goddamn important.

I verbally express affection. A LOT.

My husband… doesn’t. I don’t know why. For the longest time part of me wondered if it meant he loved me less.

At some point I told him about a thing I had done as a kid. Holding hands, three squeezes means ‘I Love You’.

Suddenly he’s telling me I Love You all the time.

Holding my hand, obviously, but also randomly.

taptaptap

on my hand, my shoulder, my butt, my knee, whatever body part is closest to him, with whatever part of him is closest to me

All the time.

More often than I ever verbally said it.

It’s an ingrained signal now, I can tap three times on whatever part of him, and get three taps back in his sleep. Apparently I do the same.

It’s made a huge difference for us.

People say things differently.

fierceawakening:

pansexualfaithlehane:

erenexe:

poedamerontrashcaneron:

intj-confessions:

auditorycheesecakes:

onyxjuniper:

frecklesandsky:

I just read this super sad post about this girl who’s asexual and married and everyone is basically telling her that she doesn’t deserve her husband/she’s just a prude/she should just do it anyway.
So I want to tell you all right now that if people tell you this, or if they tell you you’ll never have a relationship, it is BULLSHIT.
My husband is asexual and I’m not. He’s sex repulsed, we don’t have sex, we never have.
And it doesn’t matter to me. You know what does? He does. His mental health and wellbeing matter to me. Because he is my best friend and he’s one of the smartest, kindest, funniest people I’ve ever met. And he’s had people tel him that he’s broken and it makes me SO ANGRY because they are WRONG.
Being different doesnt mean you’re broken.
If you don’t like sex/don’t want it/etc. Do not let anyone tell you that you’re inferior because you’re not.
Do not let anyone convice you that you’ll never have a relationship because they’re wrong(if you want one).
You are not broken, and it will be okay.

This made me feel really good. Remember this, for all my ace spectrum friends out there

#it’s really reassuring to hear from the partner #the one who’s not ace #but is totally cool with having no sex #loves her husband anyway #is in a stable and happy relationship #it’s such a relief when you discover that asexuality is a thing #that you’re okay #but then you start to wonder if it means your only chance at not ending up alone is finding someone else who’s also ace #but no #turns out it’s not #that’s really good to hear #so #thanks #so ace #so space

I hope you don’t mind me reblogging your tags but these are my feelings EXACTLY

I’m always a little nervous that I’m not “good enough” for a “real relationship” because sex isn’t on the table. So yeah, these stories are reassuring

The amount of pressure from society to have sex is incredible. We’re told it’s linked to relationship health and if you’re not willing to do every damn thing you’re labeled a prude. It’s incredibly disheartening, especially considering how one’s libido can change over the years even if you’re not ace. Nice to see a supportive piece from a partner.

OK, kids, buckle up it’s story time.

When I got married, I hadn’t had sex yet. Waiting until marriage was important to me, so that’s what I did. My wedding night was the first time I had sex.

It sucked.

I figured, ok, this is new for both of us, it’s probably going to take some practice.

A year later? It still sucked We tried a lot of different stuff. A lot of different stuff.

It sucked so bad, we even bought a copy of “Sex for Dummies”.

(it didn’t help)

I started working late so I didn’t go to bed at the same time as my husband. Every time he would travel for work, I’d be grateful that I didn’t have to go through the awkwardness of avoiding his advances when I went to bed.

He didn’t think it was healthy for a newlywed couple to have sex less than once a week. So we scheduled it. Repeat, scheduled intimacy. I thought I was putting on a brave face and doing what I needed to do to maintain a good relationship.

Because I had no idea that asexuality was a thing.

I talked to my husband, told him I didn’t like sex. He didn’t understand. I lost track of how many times I said: “It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with you. I don’t want to have sex with anyone.”

So it was established, Amber doesn’t like sex.

But we still did it. Because I wanted my husband to be happy. Sometimes halfway through, I’d start crying.

And he’d always be supportive, and apologize.

After he finished.

So when I found out about asexuality, and told him how I felt, he suggested I go to a doctor. Because obviously there was something wrong with me.

So I went to a doctor.

(surprise, surprise, I’m perfectly healthy)

Then I told my mom. When she suggested meds to improve my sex drive, I broke down in tears. I told her there was nothing wrong with me. And my mom has been 100% supportive of my orientation ever since. When people ask if I’m a lesbian, she teaches them about asexuality.

But anyway back to my journey of self-discovery

So I tell my husband, I’m asexual, I don’t want to have sex. You are not asexual, you do want to have sex. One of us is going to be miserable in this relationship, and I’m tired of it being me. I love you too much to make you miserable for the rest of your life, but I love myself too much to be miserable for the rest of my life. We might have to face the fact that we’re not right for each other.

So his immediate response is “no, I can change, I’ll do anything, divorce is not an option, etc”

But I can’t exactly ask him to stop wanting to have sex. Because that’s not how allosexual people work. And he can’t seduce me into wanting to have sex, because that’s not how asexual people work.

Anyway. He cries, I cry, we decide on marriage counseling to help our comunication.

Because we’d been married for almost 6 years by this point, and had been together for 3 years before that, and we still can’t really talk about what we want (or don’t want) in regards to sex.

So we go to counselling for 6 weeks. The first 3 sessions individually, and the last 3 together. During the together sessions, the therapist would prompt us with a question, and we’d talk to each other, being completely honest about things.

During (what turned out to be) our last session, I’d finally had enough. I’d had enough of being embarrassed about what anyone else would think. Enough of the gender roles I was being forced into. Enough of paying someone to watch me talk to my husband. Enough of pretending to salvage a relationship that I had been increasingly avoiding over the past 2 years, and I said:

“Josh, I love you. We have communication problems, but we’ve been together almost ten years and I’m willing to work through those if you think we can make it work. But I am never having sex with you again.”

(At this point, the therapist who’d been trying to get us to communicate put down her notebook and said, ok I think we’re done.)

Then and only then, did he agree to file for divorce.

—————–

I say all that to say this:

Don’t you dare fucking tell me that asexual representation doesn’t matter. I would have six years of my life back if I had known.

And if you’re in a relationship, talk to each other oh my God. About everything. What dream you had last night. That song from scout camp that randomly gets stuck in your head. The reason you don’t like sweet potato. That embarrassing thing you did in third grade that still makes you mad when you think about it. If you and your partner can share these tiny, intimate details, talking about sex is no big deal. And it takes practice, so practice.

————–

On a happy note, now, 3 years after the divorce, I am in a happy, stable relationship with another ace. And if you happen to ask my mom how I’m doing, she’ll tell you “I’ve never seen my baby girl happier.”

It gets better. But it’s up to you to make it that way.

@theonetheonlyjordanelizabeth please read this ❤️ I may be sex repulsed but I know that I love you and thats what matters ✨

I know this is already really long and really informative, but I also wanted to add a partner’s perspective. I too, have an ace fiancee. I knew about it before our relationship. I didn’t know it was a thing until I met her, and that was huge to me because I learned something new and also came to understand an old friend a little better.

I, on the other hand, am not ace. I am at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I am pansexual, and she has a hard time I think coming to terms with the fact that I don’t want to make her have sex.

Like, ‘Really?’ you might ask me. Like really is my only reply. I have loved her for a long time now, and being we met over Tumblr and we knew one another before the relationship, sex isn’t a big deal in our relationship. and I can think of at least ten of my friends who would feel the same way right now.

ASEXUALITY IS A REAL THING, LOVING, SWEET ACE RELATIONSHIPS ARE REAL! Just because your partner wants sex doesn’t make you broken. Just because you don’t want sex doesn’t mean you should have to force yourself to do so.

Just be honest with one another, love one another. If a relationship can’t survive a healthy, honest conversation, then it wasn’t a very strong relationship to begin with.

TL;DR People who can’t see past sex as a ‘core’ in a relationship with someone ace/sex repulsed is an asshole.

It is okay to need sex in a relationship. It is also okay to be sexual and not need sex in a relationship.

Mind your own relationships, not other people’s.

ASAN Letter to ASHA On The Right To Communicate

autisticadvocacy:

ASAN Letter to ASHA On The Right To Communicate

July 2, 2018

This letter is available as a PDF here.

Dr. Elise Davis-McFarland, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, President, Past Chair, Committee on Committees
Meher Banajee, Chair, ASHA Ad Hoc Committee on FC and RPM
Marie Ireland, Vice President for Speech-Language Pathology Practice, Board Liaison
Diane Paul, ASHA Director, Clinical Issues in Speech-Language Pathology, and Committee Ex Officio
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
2200 Research Boulevard
Rockville, MD 20850-3289 USA

Via electronic mail: dpaul@asha.org

July 2, 2018

Re: ASHA’s Proposed Position Statement: Rapid Prompting Method (RPM)

Dear Drs. Davis-McFarland, Banajee, and Paul, and Ms. Ireland:

We write to voice our concerns about the recently issued proposed position statement of the ASHA Ad Hoc Committee on Facilitated Communication (FC) and the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) (“Committee”), which the ASHA Board of Directors established in summer 20171. We are deeply concerned that this Committee has failed to engage meaningfully with stakeholder communities, including and especially the self-advocate community. This lack of communication with the individuals most affected by the decisions of the Committee has resulted in a proposed position statement that will dramatically undermine access to communication supports for individuals who have no equally effective alternate forms of communication. As a result, the Committee stands to dramatically undermined ASHA’s mission of “making effective communication, a human right, accessible and achievable for all.”

As autistic self-advocates dedicated to advancing the rights of all people with developmental disabilities – including non-speaking people – we are committed both to ensuring access to a wide range of effective communication supports and promoting research on effective supports. We do not take positions on individual communication support methods or techniques. Nevertheless, we believe each non-speaking person has a right to use the method of communication that works best for them, as determined by an individualized analysis. Moreover, we believe that no single method of AAC will work for all non-speaking individuals.

The Committee’s process has deliberately shut out input from people from disabilities.

When the Autistic Self Advocacy Network attempted in 2017 to learn more about the Committee and offer input, we were denied the opportunity to speak directly to the Committee members or even learn the identities of Committee members. We are also alarmed that to our knowledge, the Committee has never, and never plans to, solicit input from people who use the methods of communication under review, or those who formerly used these methods of communication and then graduated to independent typing. The Committee has also never solicited input from a self-advocacy organization of any kind.

The Committee’s failure to engage with the community is particularly alarming considering the potential harm that may result from a process that fails to account for the experiences of self-advocates. Due to ASHA’s significant influence over speech-language professionals (SLPs), we are aware of cases in which educational institutions have alreadyrefused to provide support for students’ most effective form of communication, citing ASHA’s proposed position statement. The likely result of these denials will be isolation from the general education classrooms, exclusion from the general curriculum, and protracted due process proceedings. We are aware of many students who, when denied access to their most effective form of communication, have been forced to move to another district or leave the school system entirely. Denial of communication supports may also result in lack of access to transition-related services, institutions of higher education, and independent living supports. Loss of an effective form of communication can also result in trauma, isolation, and frustration that may in turn lead to escalating “behaviors” and increasingly restrictive interventions.

The Committee’s blanket statement that specific forms of communication are per seinauthentic robs us of the right to communicate.

The Committee’s proposed statement includes the blanket statement that “the use of … facilitator-dependent techniques … is not consistent with the communication rights of autonomy and freedom of expression because the messages do not reflect the voice of the person with a disability but, rather, reflect the voice of the ‘facilitator.’” None of the studies cited by the Committee actually supports such a generalization, nor could they, because no such study ever claimed to evaluate allfacilitator-dependent techniques or all users of any specific technique.

Evaluations of the authenticity of communication should be conducted on an individual basis, taking into account a variety of considerations. Such individualized analysis is not unprecedented. For example, the medical community has a history of engaging in meaningful discussions on how to evaluate communication by individuals who, due to motor concerns, cannot communicate effectively without the assistance of a facilitator. 2

The proposed statement does not meaningfully address the fact that no other forms of augmentative communication, including those proposed as alternatives, have been evaluated using message-passing or similar tasks. Nor does it acknowledge that some of the proposed alternative interventions – such as Applied Behavioral Analysis – have been found to have no discernible effects on communication ability3, also rely extensively on prompting, and are not themselves a form of augmentative communication. Attempting to wholesale deny the authenticity of a form of communication, regardless of the evidence available with respect to a specific individual, and then assert that unrelated interventions are “alternatives,” is unjust and logically inconsistent.

ASHA’s proposed position statement prevents a false choice between FC, RPM, and other communication supports.

The proposed statement claims, without support, that use of one form of communication necessarily “supplants” access to other techniques. This inaccurate claim is contradicted by the experiences of countless actual AAC users, many of whom use of a variety of different forms of communication, sometimes simultaneously and sometimes at different times and for different purposes. People who use letter-based communication techniques, such as RPM or FC, often also use methods such as indicating choices among options, pointing to multiple-choice answers or word/symbol banks, yes/no signals, PECS, tablet-based AAC apps, sign language, independent typing, and spoken words or sounds to communicate at different times.

To the extent that people with communication-related disabilities do not use the communication methods that the committee proposes as alternatives, it is often because those methods do not work for those individuals. Cutting off access to one form of communication, in the absence of other methods that are equally effective for that individual, is unethical and harmful. Although we agree that far too many non-speaking people have not been offered communication supports that are evidence-based and effective, taking away communication options is not the answer. Rather, we urge ASHA to take seriously the evidence that there is a critical unmet need in school districts across the country for effective, wide-scale implementation of robust AAC options, and to focus its efforts on meeting that need.

The Committee’s proposed position statement inappropriately equates absence of peer-reviewed studies with evidence that an intervention is ineffective.

Although we support formal research on communication, a significant number of communication methods have no supporting body of formal research pertaining specifically to that communication method. Rather, SLPs may recommend communication supports based on other sources of evidence, including general research on motor planning and language learning, combined with individualized evaluation of the individual in need of communication supports.4

The Committee’s proposal to restrict SLPs’ use of a communication method, based entirely on the absence of message-passing studies supporting the specific method in question, therefore threatens to set a dangerous precedent that may obstruct individuals’ access to a wide variety of communication supports. This precedent is especially threatening to those who have discovered communication methods that are highly individualized and thus not amenable to formal academic research.5

Conclusion

ASAN therefore recommends against adoption of the proposed position statement of the ASHA Ad Hoc Committee on Facilitated Communication (FC) and the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM). Adoption of the proposed statement would dramatically undermine the right of all people to the individualized supports they may need in order to communicate.

Sincerely,

Samantha Crane, J.D.
Director of Public Policy, Legal Director
Autistic Self Advocacy Network

vincennesdimanche:

litafficionado:

“If you give children a vocabulary that’s large enough and complex enough to express their emotions and their ideas, you give them access to complex feelings and emotions in themselves. So that if you talk to a teenager and all they can say about how they feel is BAD, and they haven’t got, you know, a larger vocabulary for lonely, abused, insecure, frightened…I mean there’s this huge panoply which…I remember when my daughter was just telling me that she just felt bad, I bought her a thesaurus. I said, “Look up, is it sort of over lonely, or is it insecure…and look up under lonely, you’ll find two hundred words for lonely. Which one?” But what that does is that it makes you feel that there’s this huge complexity of emotions and there are words for all of them. If you want children to feel less frustrated and less disenfranchised and less unable to even feel comfortable with their own emotions, you’ll have to give them a vocabulary that’s as complicated as their inner lives. And one of the things we see in children is this incredibly reduced capacity for reporting their inner lives to the exterior world. One of the things is just teaching them poems, just teaching them to memorize poems in school, they don’t have to interpret them, if they just internalize the language of the poem, the complexity of the emotion in the poems…”
–Jorie Graham, in a conversation

And my partner adds: Yes, but teaching the vocab isn’t enough, access to language isn’t enough. You have to be willing to listen, to hear the words your children are saying. You have to accept what they’re saying, and not mock the language with which they are presented, nor the emotions themselves. Or else your child will learn to reduce and simplify for the sake of another, for your sake as a parent, a caregiver, a family member. They will know how to explain emotions to themselves but be terrified of sharing what they’d learned, of the backlash. They’d have a language in their head, and another language to speak to you, and a third one to speak to children their age at a register and simplicity that won’t get them beat up or ostracized. Language is a two-way street.

robotsandfrippary:

instantbanana:

my-mental-pile:

itsme98z:

YES. Make things clearer and more specific

Especially the first one! I have a really hard time knowing if somebody actually wants me to do something unless they are specific about the task and direct it towards me completely.

This is some adhd/autism solidarity Mood™️

Not to derail or take away, but when someone says, “What’s the secret to a long marriage?”

This. This is the secret. be clear and specific about things. I mean, yes, my husband has ADD and i probably fall on the autism spectrum somewhere, but I learned from watching my parents that most of the misunderstandings that led to their divorce was not being clear. And what got them back together and remarried is being more clear and kind. And always saying thank you, even if it’s a simple task.

So yeah, 19 years for my husband and I this year. And this is a big part of why.

Source: sissy-that-walk

sheabutterbitch:

evil-faery:

sheabutterbitch:

A long time ago I took a course on the sociology of marriage and my professor said “With compromise, you both lose. As a couple, you must collaborate on the best possible outcome.” Ever since, I never prioritize compromise in a relationship, only collaboration.

this seems like a great concept and all but. what does it actually mean?

Compromise is typically thought of as a 50/50 split amongst partner’s needs. They’re both left partially unsatisfied, but this dissatisfaction is deemed acceptable because it is ‘equal.’ However, with additional effort, many problems may be solved through collaboration; keywords: additional effort.

In collaborating, one may try to make the conflict more complex in order to expand the possible positive outcomes. This requires trust in both parties, empathy, and consideration for one another’s needs.

The objective should shift from getting what you want and ‘keeping things quiet’ to making sure your partner feels heard and considered (as they should do with you). Essentially, you must trust that your partner has your happiness in mind, and you must have theirs, instead of fighting for your own best interest.

For further explanation, Google “compromise vs collaboration.”

lysikan:

prairiedawn:

notaboutfate:

glumshoe:

rabbitclaw:

anarmyofawesome:

glumshoe:

glumshoe:

People easily mistake neurodivergent speech patterns and communication styles for run-of-the-mill pretentiousness.

I don’t want to get too specific right now, but a lot of people who are neurodivergent (namely autistic, but there’s lots of overlap) struggle with communication. To them, writing/typing may be far easier and more natural than speaking aloud, but it can still come off as unusually formal, overly precise, or more awkwardly structured than usual. Sometimes it’s interpreted as “pretentiousness” because it doesn’t have the same casual cadence many neurotypical writers may use.

This.

wait people consider this offensive?

Not offensive so much as irritating, I guess. It’s low-hanging fruit and easy to mock whenever people pick up on something “off” about you.

Other times, people assume that you employ formal language or “advanced” vocabulary because you’re trying too hard to sound intelligent or superior. What you intend to be clear and specific may be interpreted as condescension.

I’m autistic. I’ve been mocked for sounding “anal”, accused of being a “snob”, and called plain old “cringey” for being overly formal. Oddly enough, I don’t really have this stiltedness while speaking and I’m much more casual in person. That’s learned from years of interacting a lot in a wide variety of situations. For whatever reason, though, I can’t get that to carry over to the Internet for the life of me unless I’m talking 1:1 with someone I’ve had time to get to know. If you’re not in my inner circle/we’re not DMing, you either get this formality you’re seeing here, or my over-the-top “shitposting” tone.

So, yeah, please try not to assume anything about people based on their written communication. It doesn’t always have anything to do with their personality/character or how they feel about you. We can’t all type like neurotypicals.

I think one big intersection here is when male autistics (am female, but oldest offspring is male) are easily mistaken for “mansplaining” when talking about special interests. Many men explain things women already know to them because they either intentionally or carelessly assume that the woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Autistic men will have a very hard time understanding why telling a woman something she already knows in exhaustive detail would bother her because we’re both very interested in quantum mechanics or trains or whatever, right?

Also! Those of us who do not speak or understand speech are taught a VERY formal way of writing. Until it is pointed out to us that it is not normal conversational English we have no way of knowing. (What’s worse is that it is extremely hard to do for those of us that do not think in words at all.)
I took courses in creative writing and speech (yes, speech class is really helpful in learning different ways of presenting words, even in writing).
I learned not to worry about being correct, just aim for being understandable. It takes me a lot less time to write posts (although it does annoy some people) when I just slip into Baby’s speech patterns because they are what I hear/see the most.

Sos writed stuff like this lots, but is easier an faster than writing like the firstest part. 🙂

Tag: communication

ASAN Letter to ASHA On The Right To Communicate

This is some adhd/autism solidarity Mood™️