hare dresser 🐇
(Yeah I know rabbits and hares are different species, but there's no hare emoji)
kidposting, language
Tater: R is for 토끼*!
Me: That makes perfect sense but also makes me kind of mad
* tokki, Korean for rabbit
kidposting, language, autism thoughts
The way Tater is more comfortable with singing than talking reminds me of Audre Lorde, said to be totally non-verbal until the age of 4, who came to speech through poetry and would stay comfortable speaking in snatches of poetry. I was also struck by the number of poetry contributions by nonspeaking autistic people on Neuroclastic. https://neuroclastic.com/tag/poetry/
All this makes me think Tater experiences different dimensions of language than allistic people do. His current level of speech, which looks so inadequate to allistics, likely took him incredible effort. And that's sad because he's been compelled to do so much only to be rated at so little. I have to think of more ways to help him communicate more comfortably--getting him started with AAC may be one way, since he's been doing that in tentative form anyway like pointing at pictures of food he wants to eat. I've brought it up with his speech therapist a couple of times only to be told we should be trying harder with verbal speech, but I'm tired of this verbalist bias and artificial deprivation of accommodation that might work for him. My priority is to help my child communicate, not to make him work heroically to act neurotypical.
kidposting, language, autism thoughts
@Satsuma yup! Yet there's a false/unsupported idea that it'll hinder verbal development. Not that it matters, as you say: Clearly verbal speech isn't his primary or most efficient mode of communication and I'd cheerfully throw it under the bus if it means he can communicate more effectively and comfortably by other means. But that's not even the choice we're facing here!
Rather I suspect the true concern is that AAC will unmistakably mark him out as different and not giving a damn about neurotypical comfort, in a way that can't be passed off as "he's just quiet" or "he's delayed (but is trying desperately to fit in so it's okay, the poor dear!)" In a way I even think it's more threatening for a lot of people if Tater and others turn out to communicate effectively with AAC, because it would challenge the whole structure of verbal supremacy in their minds.
kidposting, language, autism thoughts
@ljwrites ugh yes you are almost certainly right about all of this :/
Since society is so verbally dominated there is certainly a logic to encouraging at least baseline fluency, but all kids should have choices about how they communicate & be given the tools that work best for them!
kidposting, language, autism thoughts
@Satsuma yup it's definitely a useful skill with many advantages that we encourage and support for him, but treating it as something worth sacrificing effective and comfortable communication for because if he just suffers enough maybe he'll be a Real Boy... nope.
kidposting, language, autism thoughts
@ljwrites i mean obv this shouldn’t be your primary mechanism for deciding whether or not to utilize it *anyway*, tater’s needs & comfort should come first