March 31, 2025 • 16 mins
Today's Q&As are on the topic of ALL COMMUNICATION IS VALID! Talking about PECS, and Artic therapy considerations
I'm sharing a live Q&A on Instagram (@play.learn.chat) every day Mon-Fri this week (31st March - 4th April) - share a Q by DM or email me! Ask Qs about Neurodiversity Affirming Speech Therapy support for Autistic Children, or Qs about my course Affirming Communication for Autistic Children!
“Speech, mouth words, are not the only valid way to communicate. If it’s not that person’s best form of communication in that moment, it’s not the best form of communication, full stop.”
Answering Qs and sharing thoughts about:
• When speech sound/artic therapy fits a ND approach (and when it really doesn’t)
• Why PECS is not ND affirming, but using visuals as a communication method or support IS ND affirming
• How my custom AI tools help busy Speech Therapist take affirming concepts into practice, fast!
To get deeper and more actionable support around these topics and more, join me in my course!
The Affirming Communication for Autistic Children Course is NOW OPEN for enrollments! Doors close on Friday 4th April, 1pm Sydney time (AEDT)
All the info is here: https://playlearnchat.com/acac-course/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, folks.
Happy Tuesday.
Happy April.
Happy Autism Awareness or AcceptanceMonth, which is I don't love those terms.
They, they're just nowhere near.
Enough.
Honestly, I wanna make this autismcelebration month autistic joy
month, autistic understanding month.
(00:20):
There's so many more directions wecan go, go a little bit deeper than
just being aware or like accepting.
It's kind of only a tinystep beyond tolerating.
Anyway so those are my thoughts on that.
I'll be sharing a lot more over the month.
About being autistic, the good,the bad, the tricky, all of that.
Hello, friends joining.
So cool to see some familiarand some new names as well.
(00:40):
So these Q and As thatI'm running this week.
They kind of have two purposes.
One is to clarify any questionspeople have about my affirming
communication for autistic children,course for speech therapists.
Number two is also a space to askquestions about what communication
support looks like for autistic childrenin a neurodiversity affirming framework.
(01:02):
And you know, some of this,I go into great depth in
the course and other things.
There's just.
You know, nuance questions off theback of my, you know, podcast episodes.
The webinar that I did the otherweek, which is still available, if
you've registered for the turningaffirming webinar, you should
have the recording link, so that'savailable till Friday as well.
I had a couple of questionscome in and I thought they go
(01:23):
really well together today.
Around speech sounds, working on speechsounds or articulation with autistic
kids, which actually Christina, you and I,we've had a great conversation about this.
And you and I have each sharedonline a little bit about that.
So Christina being free to be me speech.
So go follow her if you're not already.
And yeah, it's somethingI've talked about, but I'll
(01:46):
definitely cover this question.
And the other one was a brilliant questionthat came in from a colleague of mine
who's not a speechy, but it was justsuch a really useful, it just fits so
beautifully here, which is the questionof is PECS affirming Pecks being PECS
Picture Exchange communication system?
So we'll go there.
And first I'm gonna make sure,before I forget it, I had somebody
(02:07):
ask me about what are the AI techtools in my affirming communication
for autistic children course?
They said, I don't really getwhat that is totally fair.
And I think I made an assumption.
I was like, oh, I know what these are,so I'm gonna just talk about them.
And.
Like put them on the website,but I haven't demonstrated
them or really shown them.
What I'll say is I'm goingto probably do a video today.
(02:28):
I'll try to do it today.
Uh, a little demo where I canactually show what the AI tech
tools are in action because I thinkthat will make it make more sense.
So I'll make sure I put thaton Instagram, but I will just
explain them so I've got them.
Little.
That's my notes there tomake sure I don't forget one.
Basically I have created threecustom chat GBT tools as a compliment
(02:49):
to the affirming communicationfor Autistic children course.
It kind of answers the question of like,right, I've got the theory, I've got the
ideas, I've got the info, but I'm so busy.
How do I actually.
Like, put that intoaction with my clients.
So I wanted to help people whoare doing my course to actually
shortcut the getting it into action.
So I've got things, I've got templates,resources, all of those more traditional
(03:10):
things that come with the course.
And they're awesome andI get great feedback.
But what I've got arethese three new tools.
'cause we roll with technology.
So one is the ND affirmingreport language bot.
Now many of you.
Like many thousands of you havemy neurodiversity affirming report
language cheat sheet, which basicallytakes what is more like deficit based
traditional wording you might see inreports and gives an affirming reframe.
(03:36):
So I've now created an AI bot thatbasically has that discussion with you
to help you figure out how can you shiftthe language that is true, but affirming
for a child that you're supporting.
And, uh, it, yeah, like it's all,don't give it identifying information.
It tells you that, like, don'ttell me identifying information.
But it can be really useful to.
Tool for you to go, well, here's aparagraph I just wrote for my client, and
(03:59):
I'm not quite sure that this is affirming,and you can go back and forth and kind of
get coached on how to make that better.
Uh, the second tool isthe sticky questions bot.
Uh oh.
I just made balloons happen.
How cool is that?
Wow.
That was fun.
Okay.
There's sticky questions, but isbasically when we're talking about
having, uh, advocacy conversations, trickyconversations with a parent or a caregiver
(04:21):
or another person in a child support team,and they're not quite aligned with us.
It's a tricky conversation.
You know what they are, youfeel it maybe in your body.
And this is basicallyan AI tool to help you.
Use my framework to thinkthrough and plan your responses.
My framework is actually calledplan to go step by step to help
you figure out what do you wannado about that tricky conversation.
(04:42):
How do you wanna proceed?
The third AI tool in the affirmingcommunication for Autistic children
course is this interest goal, matchup bot.
So I love talking about pairing a child'sinterests, that genuine interest, how
they wanna play, how they wanna engagethe, to the, the topics that they love.
I wanna pair that with makingit a useful learning activity.
(05:04):
Caution that this is separate fromwithholding something of interest and
making it not fun anymore because we arethen changing it and making the child only
do it in our way with our agenda and notactually have it be enjoyable anymore.
We are not doing that.
We're not trying tobreak the fun for kids.
We want to ensure that we're supportingautistic kids around the interests
and the activities that they lovein a genuine way, and then using
(05:27):
those things as a naturalistic.
Context and a very functional contextfor them to then work on the other
goals that they're learning and workingtowards, whether it's communication
goals, uh, literacy goals, et cetera.
So, so much more about that.
I've got a whole module pretty muchthat I share about that in the course.
And what I then have is the AI toolI built, which it basically asks you
(05:50):
what are some of the interests thatthe child has, what are some goals?
And it comes up with creative ideasthat you can just go and run with.
Honestly, they're brilliant.
Like I myself.
Could never have comeup with that many ideas.
And I think I'm pretty good atthis interest goal matching.
So, uh, that is the third AItool included in the course.
Sidebar.
I'm vaguely considering one daymaybe giving access just to the three
(06:12):
tools as their own separate things.
So if you're of interest, like ifyou're interested in that, let me know.
I'll just pop it in my noggin.
Let me know what you think.
Anyway, let's come back to theother questions that we had today.
So we're on my note.
Let's first is around supporting anautistic child with speech sounds.
(06:32):
Okay, so this person asked, do you haveany PD resources or advice for working on
speech sounds within a neurodiverse model?
I think they mean neurodiversityaffirming model, particularly with
children who are less interested intrying sounds and getting a reward,
for example, in behavioral approach,or less able to be directed in general.
I do.
Yes.
So one of the modules in my speechycourse talks about this specifically.
(06:58):
We talk about the idea, well, Ijust have to go out and say it all.
Communication is valid.
So speech as much as our communitygenerally depends where you live
and the community you live in.
But broadly, our community prizes speechis the best form of communication.
It's better than all the others.
That's not true if it'snot true for that person.
(07:19):
It can be convenient, but it's not good.
It's not the best form of communicationif it is not that person's best form
of communication in that moment, andforcing, coercing, encouraging, asking
an autistic child to speak when they're.
Not really good at it.
Not wanting to, not feelinglike that's what they wanna do.
(07:40):
They have maybe motorplanning difficulties.
Maybe they, they don't even need a reason.
Honestly.
You don't need a reason to not speak.
We, the people around that childneed to be able to adapt and
adjust our communication to respectand honor their communication
exactly how it is in that moment.
It's incredibly ableist to beasking everyone to communicate in a
(08:03):
certain way and P prising that way.
Speech, mouth words as the onlyway that is valid or worthwhile.
If you're a speech therapistand you don't deeply get that,
please do my course honestly.
Also in my evolve your affirming practicefree training, which is a podcast based
training, and you're welcome to just,uh, send me a dm, EAP, evolve Your
(08:25):
Affirming Practice, and I'll send youthe link for that in that training.
There is another, it's like a miniepisode where I talk more about this
question about, you know, supportingautistic children with speech sounds.
Now I'm not saying hello.
Hey jam.
Nice to see you there.
I'm not saying never work onspeech with an autistic child.
Absolutely not.
(08:45):
But if that child is not interested,if they're not engaging, if it's not
working for them to do that kind ofspeech therapy, that kind of repetitive
articulation, you know, the buy thebook, the way that the research says
it must be done, that kind of approachis not going to work for that child
(09:09):
in an affirming way, in a compliancebased way, maybe, yes, you might
get the child doing the therapy.
They might kind of, play alongdepending if they're like kind of a
compliant kind of kid and sometimesthat's at the detriment of the child.
They might be heavily masking their own.
Incredible discomfort, incredible effort,fullness because they think that the
(09:30):
right thing to do is to sit there andpractice their speech sounds because
everyone around them is telling themthat that's the most important thing,
even if they feel incredibly distressedinside to to be experiencing that.
It's very nuance.
It's complicated.
So please do look into myaffirming communication for
Autistic children course.
(09:50):
Please do also look at my freetraining, evolve your affirming
practice, where I talk more aboutthis question of speech sounds.
But you're on the right track.
And I guess what I'm saying here is yourquestioning is, is it possible to do
this and be neurodiversity affirming?
And the answer is yes.
Sometimes you can do speech sounds,work with a child, or articulation
therapy with a child who is autistic,and it be neurodiversity affirming.
(10:12):
It's very individual and it's aquestion of is it okay for the child?
Do they actually enjoy it?
Do they, are they motivated?
Are they engaged?
Are they enjoying that interaction withyou or does it feel really rigid and
disinteresting and way too effortful and.
Is it at the expense of telling them thattheir natural way and their preferred
way of communicating is actually okay?
(10:34):
Are we just completely ignoring otherways that that child is communicating?
Because, you know, maybe it's lessconvenient for us, so we need to make
sure we are not perpetuating this ideathat, you know, speech is the only
and most valid form of communication.
I do love to ramble and rant on that one.
It's so important.
So there's yeah.
(10:55):
Lots of resources to keep going on that.
I am going to turn my attention to PECS,the question of PECS, which was such a
great question, uh, that a conversationI had with a colleague yesterday.
Her question was, is PECS affirming?
It's just communicationvia pictures, right?
So I'll say this was not aspeechy who was asking this?
So she was just trying tounderstand, you know, where PECS
(11:17):
fits into the whole picture.
So, PECS picture Exchange communicationsystem on the whole is compliance
based A, BA, it's based on this ideathat, you know, we ask a child to
do something and they do a thing.
It's about compliance and control.
It's about getting the child to mold toour preferences for how we want them to
(11:37):
communicate at the detriment of the child.
Often it's about ignoring the way thatthe child might communicate in other ways.
Grunt pull pointing, and we'reasking them, no, no, it's
only valid in this moment.
Depends on their stage of pecks as well.
But you know, we're only gonnaacknowledge their attempts that
are actually handing us the card.
(11:57):
So we talked about throwing themanual out the window and uh, my
friend then shared this perfect gif.
I can't remember what it said, but itwas like a black and white GIF of like a
girl, like throwing a book out the window.
Perfect.
I think it said, Idon't need this anymore.
So this idea is.
The resources, you know, images, visuals,they are inherently like neutral actually.
(12:20):
So you can use PECS resources.
I'm going to say you can you can usevisuals in really affirming ways.
Visuals and visual communicationboards visual a, a c devices,
they can be incredibly affirming.
They can be really wonderful, usefulways to support an autistic child's
communication or for an autisticchild to communicate with us.
(12:41):
That's awesome.
It's when it shifts to, I'mnot gonna acknowledge the way
you, you wanna communicate.
I'm gonna ask you to conform to myrigid way where I need you to hand me
the card in this way to show that youare requesting something and I'm gonna
ignore all of your other attempts tocommunicate that are requesting something.
So, uh, it's also really muchabout like withholding things of
(13:03):
interest and, and motivating things.
I'm not about that.
We've talked about this.
I'm all about joining the child in theirjoy, in their interest, in their pleasure,
and, and just enjoying together thecommunication and learning It comes from.
Connection.
It comes from relationship and it'sall about connection and relationship.
It's not about rigid structureddecontextualize communication.
(13:28):
Like honestly, we are here tosupport a child's communication.
Go back to, what is it?
What is it all for?
It's just about connectingwith other people.
That's it.
So how do we do that?
I don't think we do that bywithholding the most interesting
thing and ensuring that they giveus a picture, because that's the
only way that we deem appropriate.
(13:48):
Hmm.
No we don't.
One of you said, I find somepeople unknowingly called
picture cards, visuals, pecs.
And yeah, and it's important tohelp distinguish the difference.
It's more a question of like,what do you do with the materials?
And so like I was talking to my friendand I really wanted a really good, uh,
analogy around this, like to help usunderstand this, you know, the materials
versus the by the book, the manual.
(14:10):
So the, uh, analogy wecame up with not true chat.
GPT helped me because I was getting stuck.
My nighttime brain was like, hmm.
Finished, but I knewthere was something there.
So it, the analogy was a behavioral,like sticker chart, like a sticker reward
chart that is like, you know, you get asticker every time you do something good.
Maybe you remove a stickerevery time you do something bad.
(14:31):
These kind of behavioral like shame-basedcharts inherently not good, not good.
That said, okay, I've used reward chartsfor myself as well, and sometimes I've
used them for my daughter in positive waysin a thing that she actually initiated.
So I am not saying.
Nothing's that black and white, but in a15 minute live, we can only do so much.
But what I'm saying is thesebehavioral sticker reward
(14:53):
charts generally non affirming.
But take the stickers off.
Use the stickers forwhatever the heck you want.
Get creative, make it pretty,make your life happy and joyful.
Have fun with them.
Then it's affirming.
So that's the analogy we got to.
So thank you all so much for joiningthis, this time goes fast when
I get excited on these topics.
(15:14):
One of you said, how do youmodel to others if they have a
non neuro affirming therapist?
I mean, like, you know what, I'mactually, I love that question.
I'm screenshotting it.
Because I'm gonna tacklethat one tomorrow.
That's gonna be such a great one.
I'm gonna talk about this idea, likeany questions that anyone has about
like collaborating changing the mindsof other people who are supporting a
(15:34):
child or how we go about working inwith a team that's not fully affirming.
Please do feel free to, uh,throw those questions at me and
I'll address that one tomorrow.
How do you model to others if theyhave a non neuro affirming therapist?
I love it.
Uh, thank you.
Thank you so much forjoining Speech Therapists.
My course affirming Communicationfor Autistic Children is open
until Friday, the 4th of April.
(15:55):
So, uh, like 1:00 PM Sydney time.
So pretty much when this is coming out,it's like doing the mass three days.
Wednesday, three days, three days away.
Depends when you're listening.
If you're listening after the fact orwatching after the fact, go and check
out the information anyway, becauseyou'll be able to see, get on the
wait list or see when it's available.
Next.
If you're on Instagram, just commentACAC as in for affirming communication
(16:20):
for autistic children, those fourletters, ACAC, and I'll send you the
link, or my robots will do that for you.
Otherwise I'll share.
That elsewhere.
Thank you for joining.
I'd love to hear your questions.
What else comes up for you?
And I will catch you tomorrow.
Same time, same place.
See ya.
Hi, folks.
Happy Tuesday.
Happy April.
Happy Autism Awareness or AcceptanceMonth, which is I don't love those terms.
They, they're just nowhere near.
Enough.
Honestly, I wanna make this autismcelebration month autistic joy
month, autistic understanding month.
(00:20):
There's so many more directions wecan go, go a little bit deeper than
just being aware or like accepting.
It's kind of only a tinystep beyond tolerating.
Anyway so those are my thoughts on that.
I'll be sharing a lot more over the month.
About being autistic, the good,the bad, the tricky, all of that.
Hello, friends joining.
So cool to see some familiarand some new names as well.
(00:40):
So these Q and As thatI'm running this week.
They kind of have two purposes.
One is to clarify any questionspeople have about my affirming
communication for autistic children,course for speech therapists.
Number two is also a space to askquestions about what communication
support looks like for autistic childrenin a neurodiversity affirming framework.
(01:02):
And you know, some of this,I go into great depth in
the course and other things.
There's just.
You know, nuance questions off theback of my, you know, podcast episodes.
The webinar that I did the otherweek, which is still available, if
you've registered for the turningaffirming webinar, you should
have the recording link, so that'savailable till Friday as well.
I had a couple of questionscome in and I thought they go
(01:23):
really well together today.
Around speech sounds, working on speechsounds or articulation with autistic
kids, which actually Christina, you and I,we've had a great conversation about this.
And you and I have each sharedonline a little bit about that.
So Christina being free to be me speech.
So go follow her if you're not already.
And yeah, it's somethingI've talked about, but I'll
(01:46):
definitely cover this question.
And the other one was a brilliant questionthat came in from a colleague of mine
who's not a speechy, but it was justsuch a really useful, it just fits so
beautifully here, which is the questionof is PECS affirming Pecks being PECS
Picture Exchange communication system?
So we'll go there.
And first I'm gonna make sure,before I forget it, I had somebody
(02:07):
ask me about what are the AI techtools in my affirming communication
for autistic children course?
They said, I don't really getwhat that is totally fair.
And I think I made an assumption.
I was like, oh, I know what these are,so I'm gonna just talk about them.
And.
Like put them on the website,but I haven't demonstrated
them or really shown them.
What I'll say is I'm goingto probably do a video today.
(02:28):
I'll try to do it today.
Uh, a little demo where I canactually show what the AI tech
tools are in action because I thinkthat will make it make more sense.
So I'll make sure I put thaton Instagram, but I will just
explain them so I've got them.
Little.
That's my notes there tomake sure I don't forget one.
Basically I have created threecustom chat GBT tools as a compliment
(02:49):
to the affirming communicationfor Autistic children course.
It kind of answers the question of like,right, I've got the theory, I've got the
ideas, I've got the info, but I'm so busy.
How do I actually.
Like, put that intoaction with my clients.
So I wanted to help people whoare doing my course to actually
shortcut the getting it into action.
So I've got things, I've got templates,resources, all of those more traditional
(03:10):
things that come with the course.
And they're awesome andI get great feedback.
But what I've got arethese three new tools.
'cause we roll with technology.
So one is the ND affirmingreport language bot.
Now many of you.
Like many thousands of you havemy neurodiversity affirming report
language cheat sheet, which basicallytakes what is more like deficit based
traditional wording you might see inreports and gives an affirming reframe.
(03:36):
So I've now created an AI bot thatbasically has that discussion with you
to help you figure out how can you shiftthe language that is true, but affirming
for a child that you're supporting.
And, uh, it, yeah, like it's all,don't give it identifying information.
It tells you that, like, don'ttell me identifying information.
But it can be really useful to.
Tool for you to go, well, here's aparagraph I just wrote for my client, and
(03:59):
I'm not quite sure that this is affirming,and you can go back and forth and kind of
get coached on how to make that better.
Uh, the second tool isthe sticky questions bot.
Uh oh.
I just made balloons happen.
How cool is that?
Wow.
That was fun.
Okay.
There's sticky questions, but isbasically when we're talking about
having, uh, advocacy conversations, trickyconversations with a parent or a caregiver
(04:21):
or another person in a child support team,and they're not quite aligned with us.
It's a tricky conversation.
You know what they are, youfeel it maybe in your body.
And this is basicallyan AI tool to help you.
Use my framework to thinkthrough and plan your responses.
My framework is actually calledplan to go step by step to help
you figure out what do you wannado about that tricky conversation.
(04:42):
How do you wanna proceed?
The third AI tool in the affirmingcommunication for Autistic children
course is this interest goal, matchup bot.
So I love talking about pairing a child'sinterests, that genuine interest, how
they wanna play, how they wanna engagethe, to the, the topics that they love.
I wanna pair that with makingit a useful learning activity.
(05:04):
Caution that this is separate fromwithholding something of interest and
making it not fun anymore because we arethen changing it and making the child only
do it in our way with our agenda and notactually have it be enjoyable anymore.
We are not doing that.
We're not trying tobreak the fun for kids.
We want to ensure that we're supportingautistic kids around the interests
and the activities that they lovein a genuine way, and then using
(05:27):
those things as a naturalistic.
Context and a very functional contextfor them to then work on the other
goals that they're learning and workingtowards, whether it's communication
goals, uh, literacy goals, et cetera.
So, so much more about that.
I've got a whole module pretty muchthat I share about that in the course.
And what I then have is the AI toolI built, which it basically asks you
(05:50):
what are some of the interests thatthe child has, what are some goals?
And it comes up with creative ideasthat you can just go and run with.
Honestly, they're brilliant.
Like I myself.
Could never have comeup with that many ideas.
And I think I'm pretty good atthis interest goal matching.
So, uh, that is the third AItool included in the course.
Sidebar.
I'm vaguely considering one daymaybe giving access just to the three
(06:12):
tools as their own separate things.
So if you're of interest, like ifyou're interested in that, let me know.
I'll just pop it in my noggin.
Let me know what you think.
Anyway, let's come back to theother questions that we had today.
So we're on my note.
Let's first is around supporting anautistic child with speech sounds.
(06:32):
Okay, so this person asked, do you haveany PD resources or advice for working on
speech sounds within a neurodiverse model?
I think they mean neurodiversityaffirming model, particularly with
children who are less interested intrying sounds and getting a reward,
for example, in behavioral approach,or less able to be directed in general.
I do.
Yes.
So one of the modules in my speechycourse talks about this specifically.
(06:58):
We talk about the idea, well, Ijust have to go out and say it all.
Communication is valid.
So speech as much as our communitygenerally depends where you live
and the community you live in.
But broadly, our community prizes speechis the best form of communication.
It's better than all the others.
That's not true if it'snot true for that person.
(07:19):
It can be convenient, but it's not good.
It's not the best form of communicationif it is not that person's best form
of communication in that moment, andforcing, coercing, encouraging, asking
an autistic child to speak when they're.
Not really good at it.
Not wanting to, not feelinglike that's what they wanna do.
(07:40):
They have maybe motorplanning difficulties.
Maybe they, they don't even need a reason.
Honestly.
You don't need a reason to not speak.
We, the people around that childneed to be able to adapt and
adjust our communication to respectand honor their communication
exactly how it is in that moment.
It's incredibly ableist to beasking everyone to communicate in a
(08:03):
certain way and P prising that way.
Speech, mouth words as the onlyway that is valid or worthwhile.
If you're a speech therapistand you don't deeply get that,
please do my course honestly.
Also in my evolve your affirming practicefree training, which is a podcast based
training, and you're welcome to just,uh, send me a dm, EAP, evolve Your
(08:25):
Affirming Practice, and I'll send youthe link for that in that training.
There is another, it's like a miniepisode where I talk more about this
question about, you know, supportingautistic children with speech sounds.
Now I'm not saying hello.
Hey jam.
Nice to see you there.
I'm not saying never work onspeech with an autistic child.
Absolutely not.
(08:45):
But if that child is not interested,if they're not engaging, if it's not
working for them to do that kind ofspeech therapy, that kind of repetitive
articulation, you know, the buy thebook, the way that the research says
it must be done, that kind of approachis not going to work for that child
(09:09):
in an affirming way, in a compliancebased way, maybe, yes, you might
get the child doing the therapy.
They might kind of, play alongdepending if they're like kind of a
compliant kind of kid and sometimesthat's at the detriment of the child.
They might be heavily masking their own.
Incredible discomfort, incredible effort,fullness because they think that the
(09:30):
right thing to do is to sit there andpractice their speech sounds because
everyone around them is telling themthat that's the most important thing,
even if they feel incredibly distressedinside to to be experiencing that.
It's very nuance.
It's complicated.
So please do look into myaffirming communication for
Autistic children course.
(09:50):
Please do also look at my freetraining, evolve your affirming
practice, where I talk more aboutthis question of speech sounds.
But you're on the right track.
And I guess what I'm saying here is yourquestioning is, is it possible to do
this and be neurodiversity affirming?
And the answer is yes.
Sometimes you can do speech sounds,work with a child, or articulation
therapy with a child who is autistic,and it be neurodiversity affirming.
(10:12):
It's very individual and it's aquestion of is it okay for the child?
Do they actually enjoy it?
Do they, are they motivated?
Are they engaged?
Are they enjoying that interaction withyou or does it feel really rigid and
disinteresting and way too effortful and.
Is it at the expense of telling them thattheir natural way and their preferred
way of communicating is actually okay?
(10:34):
Are we just completely ignoring otherways that that child is communicating?
Because, you know, maybe it's lessconvenient for us, so we need to make
sure we are not perpetuating this ideathat, you know, speech is the only
and most valid form of communication.
I do love to ramble and rant on that one.
It's so important.
So there's yeah.
(10:55):
Lots of resources to keep going on that.
I am going to turn my attention to PECS,the question of PECS, which was such a
great question, uh, that a conversationI had with a colleague yesterday.
Her question was, is PECS affirming?
It's just communicationvia pictures, right?
So I'll say this was not aspeechy who was asking this?
So she was just trying tounderstand, you know, where PECS
(11:17):
fits into the whole picture.
So, PECS picture Exchange communicationsystem on the whole is compliance
based A, BA, it's based on this ideathat, you know, we ask a child to
do something and they do a thing.
It's about compliance and control.
It's about getting the child to mold toour preferences for how we want them to
(11:37):
communicate at the detriment of the child.
Often it's about ignoring the way thatthe child might communicate in other ways.
Grunt pull pointing, and we'reasking them, no, no, it's
only valid in this moment.
Depends on their stage of pecks as well.
But you know, we're only gonnaacknowledge their attempts that
are actually handing us the card.
(11:57):
So we talked about throwing themanual out the window and uh, my
friend then shared this perfect gif.
I can't remember what it said, but itwas like a black and white GIF of like a
girl, like throwing a book out the window.
Perfect.
I think it said, Idon't need this anymore.
So this idea is.
The resources, you know, images, visuals,they are inherently like neutral actually.
(12:20):
So you can use PECS resources.
I'm going to say you can you can usevisuals in really affirming ways.
Visuals and visual communicationboards visual a, a c devices,
they can be incredibly affirming.
They can be really wonderful, usefulways to support an autistic child's
communication or for an autisticchild to communicate with us.
(12:41):
That's awesome.
It's when it shifts to, I'mnot gonna acknowledge the way
you, you wanna communicate.
I'm gonna ask you to conform to myrigid way where I need you to hand me
the card in this way to show that youare requesting something and I'm gonna
ignore all of your other attempts tocommunicate that are requesting something.
So, uh, it's also really muchabout like withholding things of
(13:03):
interest and, and motivating things.
I'm not about that.
We've talked about this.
I'm all about joining the child in theirjoy, in their interest, in their pleasure,
and, and just enjoying together thecommunication and learning It comes from.
Connection.
It comes from relationship and it'sall about connection and relationship.
It's not about rigid structureddecontextualize communication.
(13:28):
Like honestly, we are here tosupport a child's communication.
Go back to, what is it?
What is it all for?
It's just about connectingwith other people.
That's it.
So how do we do that?
I don't think we do that bywithholding the most interesting
thing and ensuring that they giveus a picture, because that's the
only way that we deem appropriate.
(13:48):
Hmm.
No we don't.
One of you said, I find somepeople unknowingly called
picture cards, visuals, pecs.
And yeah, and it's important tohelp distinguish the difference.
It's more a question of like,what do you do with the materials?
And so like I was talking to my friendand I really wanted a really good, uh,
analogy around this, like to help usunderstand this, you know, the materials
versus the by the book, the manual.
(14:10):
So the, uh, analogy wecame up with not true chat.
GPT helped me because I was getting stuck.
My nighttime brain was like, hmm.
Finished, but I knewthere was something there.
So it, the analogy was a behavioral,like sticker chart, like a sticker reward
chart that is like, you know, you get asticker every time you do something good.
Maybe you remove a stickerevery time you do something bad.
(14:31):
These kind of behavioral like shame-basedcharts inherently not good, not good.
That said, okay, I've used reward chartsfor myself as well, and sometimes I've
used them for my daughter in positive waysin a thing that she actually initiated.
So I am not saying.
Nothing's that black and white, but in a15 minute live, we can only do so much.
But what I'm saying is thesebehavioral sticker reward
(14:53):
charts generally non affirming.
But take the stickers off.
Use the stickers forwhatever the heck you want.
Get creative, make it pretty,make your life happy and joyful.
Have fun with them.
Then it's affirming.
So that's the analogy we got to.
So thank you all so much for joiningthis, this time goes fast when
I get excited on these topics.
(15:14):
One of you said, how do youmodel to others if they have a
non neuro affirming therapist?
I mean, like, you know what, I'mactually, I love that question.
I'm screenshotting it.
Because I'm gonna tacklethat one tomorrow.
That's gonna be such a great one.
I'm gonna talk about this idea, likeany questions that anyone has about
like collaborating changing the mindsof other people who are supporting a
(15:34):
child or how we go about working inwith a team that's not fully affirming.
Please do feel free to, uh,throw those questions at me and
I'll address that one tomorrow.
How do you model to others if theyhave a non neuro affirming therapist?
I love it.
Uh, thank you.
Thank you so much forjoining Speech Therapists.
My course affirming Communicationfor Autistic Children is open
until Friday, the 4th of April.
(15:55):
So, uh, like 1:00 PM Sydney time.
So pretty much when this is coming out,it's like doing the mass three days.
Wednesday, three days, three days away.
Depends when you're listening.
If you're listening after the fact orwatching after the fact, go and check
out the information anyway, becauseyou'll be able to see, get on the
wait list or see when it's available.
Next.
If you're on Instagram, just commentACAC as in for affirming communication
(16:20):
for autistic children, those fourletters, ACAC, and I'll send you the
link, or my robots will do that for you.
Otherwise I'll share.
That elsewhere.
Thank you for joining.
I'd love to hear your questions.
What else comes up for you?
And I will catch you tomorrow.
Same time, same place.
See ya.
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