Big Sister and I had the privilege of spending two days at the Communication Matters Conference earlier this week. Leeds University hosted nearly 500 delegates including 39 AAC (Alternative and Augmentative Communication) users. It was incredible to meet up with friends, people we know working in the field and to meet new people and make new friends.

There were so many talks across the two days that it was impossible to see them all. I feel like we only scratched the surface but we would have needed an entire week or possibly more to cover it all. AI was a big theme. Both the possibilities and the pitfalls for AAC were discussed. The talks that left the biggest impression were the ones where AAC users themselves spoke.

I really wish Quinns could have been there to see the other AAC users in action both speaking and generally being around. He is still a bit too young for such a Conference so it will be a few years before we can bring him along and introduce him to this community.

One of the talks at the Conference was from Smartbox about ElevenLabs voice integration. You may have seen the story on the BBC recently about the woman they created a voice for using 8 seconds of scratchy voice recording from a VHS video. Although Quinns isn’t eligible for a voice at the moment we got to talking about it.

He’s come a long way since he changed his voice to the Queen when he first got the device. This was one decision we reversed as he was only three! In the summer we deepened his computer voice slightly in line with his age and will deepen it further as he heads into his teenage years. He has only ever had a computer voice so it’s difficult to imagine what his accent would be but how amazing would it be for him to have his own unique voice.

It’s been a while since I shared any of Quinns’ AAC journey. In the past year he has got a new eye gaze device which is slightly bigger and has improvements such as a partner screen on the back so that communication partners can work opposite him rather than crowd in beside him.

The new device includes TV controls allowing him to scroll through YouTube or put on a film on our main home tv or maybe I should say Quinns’ tv as he’s the one who watches it the most. When we tried to watch a programme while he was playing games on the eye gaze I couldn’t understand why it had stopped until I remembered Quinns now has control! He clearly did not want to watch what we were watching.

He also now has a mount for his wheelchair so he can use the device when he is out and about. He loves being able to show it off to the librarians in our local library! We are still coming to terms with making sure we have all the bits necessary when we leave the house.

Following input from CALL Scotland last year he is now much more able to use it for his school work including filling out maths sheets. Apparently he really enjoys learning his times tables! At home he is obsessed with art. Despite our attempts to have him on a communication grid to talk to us he prefers to navigate to his school board, say ‘Au revoir’ and escape to the grid where he can open his art programme. It’s all communication, right?

We have returned from the conference with lots to reflect on as well as ideas to help integrate Quinns’ eye gaze device into our lives more and give him more opportunities to use it and communicate beyond our family. Although it may be a while before we can take him to the conference maybe there will be a meet up of young AAC users in Scotland soon!