Communication Project

This week I turned in my communication project for class, so I wanted to share with everyone some of my experiences. I was given the assignment to not talk for one hour. I was to use a communication board I created to communicate for this hour. No signs, no gestures, no sounds. I picked a family dinner to try my communication board out.

At first, I figured this was going to be easy. I have programmed Dynavoxes (is that the plural of Dynavox?), I have used communication boards and am very experienced with boardmaker. So, I thought, can this be any easier? Well getting into and thinking about it a little more, I realized that this was going to be a communication nightmare. I had to find a way to communicate with Beata, my wife, Davin, my 7-year-old son, Simone, my 3-year-old daughter, and Nadine, my daughter who is only 10 months. Right away I knew that Nadine and I were not communicating for this hour. She claps, waves and approximates some words, all of which are against the rules. That still leaves me to plan for communicating with an adult and 2 small children. If I was just with Beata, I could easily have created multiple boards and with smaller symbols and words in order to communicate. This would not work with the younger ones. Davin is a reader and can read the symbols and understand some of the more complex symbols. Simone does not read and would need to rely on larger simpler pictures. Therefore, I created a simpler board that was 5 x 6 and utilized 1 ½ inch squares. I was hoping to use the least amount of symbols to clearly communicate my wants and needs.

Needless to say, dinner did not go as planned. I went over my board with Davin and Simone beforehand. We started my hour at dinner prep. I had Davin and Simone wash their hands. I was happy to be able to communicate this seemingly simple message effectively. I did not, however, tell Simone to not strip while washing her hands. I totally did not plan for that. Fail #1. I had absolutely no way of telling Simone to get her clothes back on. Not a huge issue so we moved on. Next, I had Simone and Davin sit in their chairs. Well, again in true Simone fashion, this became a game. Every time I had her sit, she would, I would turn my attention to dinner and would hear her giggling as she stood up, wanting me to ask her to sit again. We went through this several times before dinner was finished. Thankfully, the rest of dinner went along uneventfully.

At the end of my hour, I reflected on dinner. A few things really got me thinking about my teaching and how I have my students communicate. First, I was able to clearly communicate my wants and needs but was missing out on some of the spontaneous conversations that normally occur during any family meal. I had to sit back and listen while Beata steered conversation. My personality really was not able to come out and I mostly became a passive participant in dinner. Next, in creating our boards we were told to make a symbol that said, "No symbol" to indicate that we understood what is being said but can not communicate a response. I really never thought of this before. It is unfair of us as teachers, parents, and other professionals to assume we know everything that a child could and would want to communicate. It is our responsibility to say, we can not plan for everything. In this case, we need to give the child the way to communicate that instead of forcing a response from them.

I suggest everyone try this. It does not have to be for a full hour, but just try and find alternative ways to communicate and see how effective or ineffective you are. However, learn from me and if you have small children make a plan to communicate to them to put their clothes back on.