#AAC system

[nonspeakingkiku]

System/AAC post time ☺️ (just a note. We are a poly fragmented system with a lot of members and there is overlap with how we communicate.

Different ones of us use different things to communicate.

High tech aac wise Kiku mostly uses Touchchat, Proloquo, and as of recently the semantic pro pageset in TD Snap.

Outside of high tech aac Kiku uses some ASL, noises, gestures, word approximations, and low tech aac (letterboards, core boards, communication cards, and sometimes picture cards). Kiku experiences unreliable speech but honestly Kiku's speech is more likely to be unintelligable to people that aren't our partners/caregivers.

Lavender experiences a lot of unreliable speech (he has estimated around 90% of the body's speech when fae is fronting is not what fae wants to say.) Lavender prefers Proloquo2go set to a large grid size (12x16) with a custom color code (can't remember which it's based off of but verbs are green. Lavender struggles to tell the difference between and see shades of blue sometimes, so there isn't a lot of blue in his setup.)

(Our CVI affects each of us a bit differently (for example, Kiku's easiest colors to see are yellow and green, Lavender's colors are pink, light purple, and red, and Percy's easiest to see colors are blue, red, and yellow.)

Lavender also uses Proloquo4text and recently has been trying semantic pro in TD Snap (we are very nervous about the changes that have been occuring with TD Snap/Tobii Dynavox but this post isn't about that). Lavender experiences a lot of our cognitive symptoms and aphasia (although this might just because they often front the most of the three of us.). Lavender uses one of our letterboards, texting, communication cards, and some asl. Lavender has a hard time remembering that we can use AAC and has only really recently realised how much of faer speech is unreliable.

Percy primarily uses LAMP and prefers high contrast symbols the most of the three of us (high contrast helps us all, especially with text only but Lavender prefers symbol stixx symbols) along with LAMP Percy uses a LAMP core/letterboard, some ASL, gestures, communication cards, picture cards and noises. Of the three of us Percy is the most likely to be completely silent.

We can all use LAMP (we think it's the motor planning aspect, which makes sense) but we each prefer different apps/communication methods.

Outside of the three of us we also have other alters who are AAC users. (a lot of us don't front to the outside world so they might not use AAC). We have two littles specifically who prefer ASL and writing respectively. One, Frisk, prefers ASL, and is mute (he does write when he has to (we only know so much ASL) but he's never happy about it lol) and the other struggles to talk and stutters badly when he tries and he prefers to write. (He has his own note pad but he doesn't front often.

Our AAC system is not perfect, we are still working on getting things to help us communicate, we especially don't have a good solution for when our vision and/or hearing is worse. We hope to get tactile symbols and a tactile keyguard at some point (preferably soon because our it's been a problem and it's getting hotter here which makes our vision worse).

We als want to get an accent at some point with a tactile keyguard and LAMP on it so we will have a dedicated AAC device we can always have a keyguard on.

Thanks for reading.

[systemic-stupidity]

*deep breath in*

*deep breath out*

Let AAC users say fuck!

Let them swear, let them say fuck and asshole and anything else they want.

Let them program their devices to say ‘fuck off’ instead of just ‘leave me alone, please’. Let them have language that’s adult or even offensive! Give them the ability to communicate the same as anyone else- let them have the option to be abrasive and even rude for when people are being assholes, let them swear casually so they can joke with their peers and say shit like ‘can you pass the damn ketchup’!!!!!!!!

Let disabled people say fuck!

[tontoemojis]

System emojis , will update adding more emojis as requested .

Blurry

Unknown , unknown alter …

Co - con { co - conscious , co - consciousness }

Crowded , crowded front

Switch

Frontstuck

Dissociating

Split

Co - front

[k9emote]

More mental health / Identity / Terms

(made for my discord server being released soon)

Singlet

System

Therian

Nonhuman

Regressor

Disabled

ADHD

Autistic

Tics / Tourettes

Bipolar

[vixdesl]

we love our "cringe" pronouns

we love our "weird" identities

I love our "awkward" behavior

we love our "unnecessary" disability aids

I love our "crazy" style

and the "annoying" stims we do

we love us and no one can change that no matter what they think is "weird" or "wrong" with us

Stop apologizing for who you are

and start celebrating it!! 🎊

[meeb-motes]

Plural + CDD self love emojis

:D!! yay!! CDD flag is by @coiningcoiningcoining(hopefully the tag is ok!)

requests are closed!

-F2/🍁

[foxgrove-collective]

it's all Fun and Games to neurotypicals until i pull out my AAC and then no one is laughing anymore.

respect people who aren't always going to be able to speak.

respect people who rarely use AAC.

respect people who use AAC 50% of the time.

just because i am able speak sometimes, does not automatically mean i can speak 100% of the time.

[measlyfurball13]

I'm Still Here

Summary: Curly is rescued. He is given a voice. Supposedly.

---

It’s all a blur. Men in suits with helmets. Men in suits without. Any memories Curly might have of the rescue and its aftermath are blurred around the edges. He’s sure he drooled and screamed all through the process.

Funny. He doesn’t remember the pain. It’s as if his mind has painted over it in an easier color on the eyes. 

(He remembers her saying the same thing happens after childbirth-)

It’s only a few hours after the IV is jammed into his arm that reality crisps up again. He’s staring into the face of a nurse. The nurse is a he, and a different skin tone (than him) and utterly unrecognizable. That’s the first clue.

The second is the woman in the crisp suit. A lawyer, supposedly. Civil servant. Looking over him and sighing. Another woman enters and they discuss conservatorship. Curly doesn’t know what this means. He’s never had to worry about it. He grunts, even tries to form his lips into the shape of something, but nothing makes them turn to him and clue him in on anything. 

Next comes someone dressed in a slouched sweater pulling a cart. They’re setting up some sort of device around him. It takes several days though, and in the moments between the lawyer comes back, mutters a few things about an accident investigation, then disappears again.

The nurse usually doesn’t talk when he visits but one time he sits down in the chair across the room and solemnly says that both of Curly’s parents died in the time it took for the rescue team to find him and that his next of kin is a cousin. Cousin Sue, Curly guesses. She lived all the way in New York. 

The machine is completed. A screen hangs above his hospital bed. The person in the slouched sweater instructs him to look at the twenty-six letters on the screen, focus on the one he wants, and blink to select it. 

It takes him three hours to first produce the word “HELLO.” 

“Practice and you’ll get the hang of it.” Slouched sweater says.

Slouched sweater leaves. The nurse comes in. Moves the screen. Changes his bandages. Sets up the screen again. Leaves just before Curly can type “HELLO” to him. 

(A single word. A single word. He would have given anything for just a single word to her.)

Now the lawyer drags the chair beside his bed and sits down. She’s holding a notepad and a pen. 

“Tell me,” she says, slowly, “what happened aboard the Tulpar.” 

He forgets to breathe. 

“What,” she says, “caused,” she says, “the accident?” 

Words pierce his brain like knives, his eye darts around the keyboard and his eyelid can’t keep up and it blinks without his command. Letters spill across the screen and he’s having to backspace them and-

The lawyer has put down the notepad and has opened her phone. She’s texting someone else. Then she takes a call. Then she answers some emails. 

-Curly finally blinks ‘send’ on the console, and a tinny voice reads out “JIMMY.” 

“Hmm?” The lawyer looks up from her phone. “Jimmy? As in, your co-pilot?” 

“Y” Curly sends, hoping that the lawyer can at least wrap her head around something as simple as that.

“Go on.” The lawyer urges.

Curly exhales against his bandages, and types “E” and “S”. 

“What about him?” 

“K”. Then “I”. “L” and “L”, the lawyer is pulling out her phone again. His eye hurts, it’s refusing to move at all now and this dumb bitch isn’t-

He flinches. God, he’s so sorry. He’s so sorry and she deserved none of this and maybe if he’d been a better man and not a goddamned coward and taken some responsibility then maybe she’d be listening to him right now instead.

The lawyer glances up from her phone. “Yes, Jimmy was found deceased. Your cryo pod was the only one functioning. It seems he gave up his spot for you. My condolences for your loss.” 

Something more burning than the fire rips through his stomach and he forces his eye back onto the screen. “E” and “D”, then space, then “E”, then “V”, “E” and “R”, “Y”, his vision is wavering, “O”, “N”, he can practically feel his non-existent hand tapping on the screen to finish the job, “E”. . .

His eyelid slams shut. He can tell, vaguely, that his cheek bandages are damp but whether that’s normal or from anything spilling out of his eye is beyond him. His neck twitches from the strain. 

He coughs. Forces his eye open. The lawyer looks at the screen. Looks back down at her phone. Looks at the screen again. Her eyebrows raise. 

“Are you sure?” She asks.

Of course I’m fucking sure! he could shout and shake her shoulders. 

“This was not the fault of Pony Express or its parent corporation?” 

“N”, then “O”, and now she’s actually paying attention. Something hungry lights up in her eyes, and she takes a picture of the screen and then starts furiously scribbling on her notepad. 

—

“-in this room right here, ma’am.” The nurse opens the door.

Curly looks over. Following the nurse is Cousin Sue, her blond locks he remembers now turned more platinum. She stops in the doorway and covers her mouth with her hands. 

“Were you not warned?” The nurse asks her.

She ignores him, running over by the bedside. “Oh you poor thing!” 

Curly tries to flick his eyes towards the screen, only for liquid lightning to pour into all his senses when she grabs the stump of his left arm. He chokes on air. The burning sensation lingers even as she jerks her hand away. 

“Take it easy, ma’am.” The nurse says.

“Why was it wet?” She mutters and shakes out her hand.

“Some leakage from blisters beneath the bandages. He’s okay. Try to be gentle.” 

“God. It’s horrific. I can hardly. . .”

The nurse drags her over a chair as if she might collapse any minute. Curly’s nerve endings are still on fire. She still hasn’t made eye contact with him. 

“H”, he types. “I”. Blinks to send. “HI.” 

“Hi.” She echoes. “He said hi.”

“The law firm hooked him up. That’s how we know the full story.”

It wasn’t the full story. It was the story told in simple enough words that the lawyer would stay awake while he typed. 

“God. What happened was. . . so terrible.” Sue covers her mouth. “I’m sure he did everything he could.” 

“I’ll leave you two alone now.” The nurse steps back.

The door clicks shut. Sue’s watery eyes rake up and down his frame. 

“It’s all that bastard’s fault, isn’t it? And to think you even invited him to a family reunion or two. I remember that.” 

Curly looks to the “N”. Blinks. Looks to the “O”. Blinks. Erases both. Blinks an “M”. Then a “Y”. Space. “F”. “A-”

“Disgusting man. Letting you get like this. I’m sorry about the rest of the crew as well, of course. At least they got the easy way out of things. . .” 

Curly stares at the wall behind the screen. Something inside his throat trembles. 

“What’s going on? Do you need something? Water? Water perhaps?” 

Sue looks around her before spotting the sink across the room. She grabs a cup from the nearby dispenser and fills it. Then she returns to his bedside, standing over him and then there’s his fingers on his chin opening his mouth and-

He gags. He sobs. Something wet splashes against the inside of his mouth (it’s blood it’s blood it’s blood) and nausea plays a soaring note above the chorus. 

He becomes nothing but a shivering pile of meat for a little. It’s more comfortable that way rather than trying to think. And when he opens his eyes again, Sue is gone. 

—

Curly knows there isn’t much time left. When Sue came back she talked about a private care home, and if there’s even a chance of the screen not coming with then he can’t risk it. He’s started typing only when there’s no one around to read it. It’s easier that way.

Sue and the nurse come in. They’re discussing something but Curly can hardly hear them until the nurse puts his hand on the swivel holding up the screen. Curly’s pulse lights up, and before anyone else can even breathe he blinks “send” on the console. 

The tinny voice reads each syllable as if it were reporting the weather. 

“I’M SORRY SWANSEA.”

“I’M SORRY DAISUKE.”

“ANYA. I’M SORRY. MY FAULT.” 

“I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED. DEAD PIXEL. INSTEAD OF THE BIG PICTURE.” 

Curly lets his eye droop down from the screen. 

“. . . what was all that?” Sue asks. 

The nurse comes over to his bedside. “Are you feeling alright?”

Curly doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t need to. 

All the words he could possibly offer are jammed. Like logs against the rocks beneath the water of the river he grew up by as a kid. Or traffic in the big city he moved to after moving out. Or a key in the wrong keyhole. (Or pills in his throat.)

All of these pictures he could paint. The only people who would find it worth the wait are all dead. Somehow Jimmy is among them. 

Damn it all. Curly stares at the ceiling. The nurse takes down the screen and then manhandles him into a wheelchair.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Here’s some positivity for systems who use AAC!

Augmentative and alternative communication is often a necessary way for many neurodivergent or disabled folks to interact with others and share their ideas with the world. AAC is absolutely a valid form of communication, and those who use it should be welcomed and encouraged in our spaces. This post goes out to all the systems and headmates out there who are AAC users!

☎️ Shoutout to nonverbal/nonspeaking systems whose whole collective has been using AAC for their whole lives!

📝 Shoutout to systems who use AAC for some reason other than autism!

🗣️ Shoutout to systems with some members who are more reliant on AAC than others!

💻 Shoutout to systems who sometimes feel frustrated or limited by the AAC they use to communicate!

☎️ Shoutout to systems who take a long time to communicate with AAC and who need others around them to be patient while they put together their thoughts!

📝 Shoutout to systems who use unorthodox or uncommon methods of AAC!

🗣️ Shoutout to systems who cannot afford specialized AAC tools, and have to make do with free apps, homemade communication cards, or other cheap AAC tools!

💻 Shoutout to AAC using systems who are tired of being ignored, talked over, and infantilized in their spaces!

☎️ Shoutout to systems who educate others on AAC and advocate for the rights of other AAC users!

📝 Shoutout to systems who use AAC after regression, an accident, a degenerative disease, or some other condition that has made regular communication difficult or impossible for them!

🗣️ Shoutout to AAC users who swear, who discuss adult themes, or who do not want their methods of communication to be censored or sanitized by others or by their communication tools themselves!

💻 Shoutout to systems who love their AAC and love the freedom of communication that their AAC provides!

To all systems who are AAC users, we love you and want to support you however we can! Regardless of why your system uses AAC, you belong in the plural community just the way you are. Your voice matters, and you deserve to be heard, acknowledged, and uplifted in our spaces. The plural community is made better and stronger by your presence, and it simply would not be the same without you here!

We hope that you can gain access to communication tools that help you feel empowered and comfortable sharing your thoughts. We hope you can surround yourselves with people who are patient, kind, and accepting of your AAC. We hope that your AAC grants your whole system the freedom to express yourselves in the ways that feel right for you! We care about you, and we are rooting for you in all that you do. Thank you so much for reading, and have a lovely day!

[mojis-by-iimari]

Here's some random sys mojis I made !!

Expect more heehoo

[thecouncil-aac]

If anyone is willing and able to spare a few dollars, we're fundraising to buy the lifetime membership for Coughdrop AAC (one-time purchase of 295 $USD)

We're currently an unemployed student whose disabilities make it difficult to earn much income -> currently, most of our funds go towards medication, appointments, and food

We plan to host a livestream "donathon" in which we'll draw a little doodle for every person who donates during the livestream, but we don't know exactly when that'll be...

Please don't feel pressured to donate if you're not in a place to safely do so! Times are tough, and there's nothing wrong with prioritizing your health and well-being <3

If you can though, our Ko-fi is

[nonspeakingkiku]

Kiku got Kiku's picture card binder! Kiku is sooooooo happy with it. It's great (it's bigger than expected but Kiku isn't a great judge of size😅). There's so many cards, it's so tactile, can just hand someone a card. It's so great. Kiku is super happy with it. ☺️

[stixxels]

If you have any more please request!!

My brain can't remember more atm 🦅🦅🦅🦅

[tontoemojis]

holding baby !!! .

➡️ help me afford AAC aap

[k9emote]

HOLDING CHILD EMOTES

sleepy child hold

mischievous child hold

affectionate child hold

giggling child hold

crying child hold

upset child hold

blank child hold

[vixdesl]

!!! so excited we finally got it pretty much almost done :3

bumbumbummmm!!!