As a mother and a pediatrician, I’ve both felt the strain of pandemic parenting directly and indirectly. I’ve made decisions about my own family and sending our kids to daycare and school, and I’ve stayed up worrying about how parents are supposed to make these difficult choices with so little support.
When you use alternate means of communication it can be really frustrating to go out in community. It is hard to know whether people are understanding you and whether they will take the time to listen. A lot of times it's hard for people to admit that they're not always comfortable with a device or a wheelchair or person who does things differently. So the more we can expose and educate people the better off we all will be. When we talk about acceptance, we're not just talking about people in society accepting people with disabilities. We're also talking about people with disabilities who are using alternate means of communication and how difficult it is for them to be out in the community.
Many of our products today have accessibility supports in them to the extent where we don't have to purchase anything else. It's already in there. Your phone, your tablet, your smart home devices. If you're going to look for these features on your devices, you can start in your settings. There should be something in there that says accessibility. Go in there, see what's available. The manufacturers have done a really nice job of describing these features right within the settings to give you a sense of what they're going to do.
Every educator needs to make a decision about technology they need to put in place. They're not sure if they should put Option A in place or Option B in place. This can be particularly difficult in the world of disabilities because there might not always be a perfect answer. Teachers can look to this solution, using the least dangerous assumption to make good decisions about what technology might be best.
Everybody tells stories, and that includes people who use communication systems. To ensure success and the ability to participate we need to make it as easy as possible. So that we can tell stories whenever we want, wherever we want, to whomever we want, and in a really easy way, so we can be successful.
When you don't have enough evidence about a student's performance, assume they can do whatever you're asking them to do.