My AAC is how I communicate. My AAC is freedom. My AAC is what lets me say what I want to say (at least some of the time). And my AAC is mine. It is part of me.
I am an AAC user. I am an AAC user who happens to have access to speech sometimes. But I am an AAC user.
And people ask, what AAC is?
It's what it is. It's part of how I communicate. Its the tools that let me do this. AAC is AAC. AAC is a wide variety of methods of communication. AAC is so so very important.
What its not is 'something besides speech'. What its not is 'this is what AAC stands for' What its not is the medialized 'you go through these gatekeepers and they deem you disabled enough to get services you've needed for decades but people have been denying you trying to normalize you'
What its not is any of the definitions I see people giving since the are so much trying to formalize and fit into boxes and make it easy and pretty and tied up in a bow.
My communication is what it is, messy and imperfect and using piles of tools. Built from the grave of what professionals tried to form me into, and me searching and searching and searching for things I need.
My communication is what it is, made of so many pieces. With at times professionals abusing me and at other times professional supporting me to have more accessible forms avaiable to me.
My communication is what it is, and it is mine.
I am an AAC user. And my AAC is made of my fighting for accessible communication. It's not made of This Thing or That Thing. it's not made of being given access. It's not made of easy simple patterns.
My AAC is made of this tower where I pull from all types of communication. Where I've searched and found and said my AAC isn't either or. My AAC doesn't have to fit in your boxes. My AAC is part of me and I don't fit in a box you confine me to.
My AAC is not some sort of this is what I use instead of speech. I mean it is. But its so much more than that.
My AAC is not some sort of this is what I use alongside speech to make it easier to communicate. I mean it is. But is so much more than that.
My AAC is not some sort of I use this in order to communicate when I can't communicate with speech alone. I mean it is. But its so much more than that.
Because in so very many ways my AAC isn't about speech in any form.
My AAC is about typing and symbols, high tech and low tech, grabbing a random item, getting things across however, its all communication.
My AAC is about sitting there never saying a word not because I can't or because I won't or for any other reason but because why would there even be a discussion about speech. Who cares. It just isn't relevant. Not everything is about speech.
My AAC is about fire and water, rocks and leaves, the ways we support each other and a cat's purr.
My AAC is about freedom from speech more than it is about speech. It's about the ability to say, nah, not not everything is about that.
My AAC is about the fact that I'm even writing this is too speech-centric because I shouldn't have to say that speech doesn't have to be default.
My AAC isn't alternative. My AAC isn't augmentative. Because my AAC is not in comparison. My AAC is itself and that is all it has to be. It doesn't have to be 'not that'.
My communication is in reference to itself, its in reference to me, its in reference to my life my relationships. There's no reason to define me as 'not that' rather than who I am.
I'm not giving speech that much power to define my communication that much. I'm not giving speech the power of defining how my communication works when my communication has its own power.