I like turtles
I first started seriously looking at symbol based AAC in my mid 20s. I was working and needed more support than I had in order to be able to do my job - this was something that seemed like it would mean I could work when I otherwise couldn't. Vocational rehab was supposed to get me a setup, but avoided doing so until I needed to quit with my brain and body being unable to keep up with the demands of work.
This meant I first got the symbol AAC I use in my late 20s, when I was able to afford it for myself. I'd graduated from college. I'd worked in the field of education. I'd started typing when I was young, and was regularly using typing based AAC. I was able to communicate using speech at least some of the time. And while none of what people do, or don't do is important to their worth, I'm making this clear, entirely for the next point.
It took months for me to be able to say anything besides "I like turtles" on my symbol based AAC.
AAC is hard. It is really hard. Communicating is hard. Language is hard. Learning these things is so many different things you need to do, you need to know, you need to learn and put together, and piece together. But - even for someone who had been regularly using English in multiple other forms - I could not say more than a single sentence - the same sentence always - on my system, for literal months.
And think about the expectations put on toddlers? To within a week or two be using this to communicate?
I could never have done that - and I had the advantage of choosing the app I wanted, so I knew it was one that the organization worked better for my brain. I had the advantage of being able to organize and reorganize and continue to reorganize my app to make it work better for me (and in the process learn how it was set up!) I had the advantage of decades of learning how my body coordinated, because as dyspraxic as I am now, I'm not 3 years old and trying to learn my same dyspraxic body.
I had the advantage that I had the choice and control, and that when I was practicing, I could look through other folders, trying to figure out anything else to say, and get overly confused and go back to just saying "I like turtles" yet again, and nobody would tell me I had the mind of a toddler, when I was 28, because I had gotten lucky enough to have control of who was around me as I was practicing. I had the advantage that I could lead the way, completely.
And still, it took months, where all I could say was "I like turtles". And months of practicing, in ways other people did not see, and would need to trust me that it was worth having this app and having paid for this app. And months, of figuring out things in my own very personal way. And returning and telling people that "I like turtles"
These expectations of children figuring out AAC in weeks, or even in months, are unrealistic. We are asking people to do incredibly difficult tasks of figuring out how to communicate in new ways. And it can be worth immnense effort to learn to communicate in new ways, and add these to the set of methods of communication. But that doesn't make it not, really, really hard. (I will note, that whether or not something that is difficult is worth it is going to vary, sometimes something will be worth it, sometimes it won't be and something else would be, everything is personal. I know for me, what is worth using for communication and effort and how immensely hard it is when multiple things are really hard, is going to vary moment to moment - that's okay. Communication is complex.)
We're asking people to learn to communicate in ways that abled adults can't, as they talk about how hard it is to model, and not being able to do the modeling for their children, and yet, there's this expectation that children can pick it up within a month, despite that difficulty
And beyond all of these expectations, there is the simple experience. This is hard. This is really hard. And that's okay for me to say that this is really hard for me still and was really hard, and even though it's sometimes the best I have, that doesn't change that it's hard.
And, the simple description of, figuring out AAC by repetition of even the same thing is something I needed to do and that's okay too. And if you haven't guessed, I like turtles.