Live Blogging from Syracuse Institute on Communication and Inclusion

I’m at the 2013 Summer Institute on Communication and Inclusion, a conference on disability and technology hosted at Syracuse University. I’m in a ball room with blind people, deaf people, autistic people–what we have come to call “planet Syracuse”. Inclusion means everyone is at the table and the “table” is education AND the public square. My friend D.J. Savarese is here beside me. D.J. is the first non-speaking student to attend Oberlin College. D.J. types to communicate. In a very real sense I do too. As a visually impaired person I use my talking computer to read web pages, process documents, take notes. My functional world is made possible by technology. But the Summer Institute on Communication and Inclusion is about much more than the utility and possibilities of tech–its about the validity of disability as a way of knowing. 

 

Ibby Grace, an autist blogger is about to speak. I’m eager to hear her. I’ve been lucky these past few years, blogging and loafing in the digital square to meet hundreds of people with disabilities who are pushing the envelope of disability in public. Her blog, Tiny Grace Notes is terrific. 

 

Ibby: communication has to do with the same word as community. Community and communication is the act of making things available to everyone in common. That’s why the center of a university is called the “commons” in the UK. 

 

Without communication we can’t have communities. 

 

We have an autistic community now…before internet…didn’t have access to autistic community. I was the only autistic person I’d ever met. They used to tell everybody to put the autistic people away. I never got the chance to meet people until I was 17 “out of institutions”. I got community. 

 

Internet: the keyboard is mightier than the sword. Having community via internet–across the nation and around the world we’re talking to one another. 

 

It’s helped people who don’t talk by yammering to have the same amount of voice–you can get your stuff said even if you’re not a chatter box. ON the internet you can say it out; on the internet you can say it out. Everyone should have the right to all the communication they can give. 

 

Doubters of FC and typing for autistic people are tricked out in fake science. Science means knowledge in its highest form–it means I like new knowledge.

 

We presume competence. 

 

Because: Duh!

 

We know we have things to say and we know we want to say them.

 

All of the people can start a blog…

 

Theres a word called alexithymia which means you don’t have the words for feelings. 

 

My parents believed in me always. No matter what other people thought. 

 

I was no picnic. Not even at a truckstop or bench on the street. But you believed in me and taught me things and stood by bravely when I didn’t get it. 

 

Not the doctors or the people at school. Neighborhood didn’t make it easy.

 

You made space for me and never gave up.

 

Sometimes its hard even though I’m older now. 

 

Positive neurodiversity theory. The people in the academic world begin to understand in a more theoretical way and treat us as diverse people rather than change us. 

 

Feel free to join the movement. We’re trying to occupy academia. 

 

The other thing simultaneously dismantle the type of research that has a choke hold that causes people to be mean to us, demean us. 

 

 

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While Ibby is talking she’s using a talking keyboard and a microphone. 

People around the room are flapping their hands, working worry beads for anxiety, uttering vocables. My friend and colleague Doug Biklen leans over with a smile and says: you hear the background sounds of people; its great!”

 

And it is great. Inclusion and communication means everyone and every approach to language. 

 

**

 

“Everyone here has something that will improve the world.” (Voice from audience)

 

Ibby: “My autism isn’t in my speech; its in the knowledge of my body.”

 

**

 

Ibby: “Oh and I don’t know what time it is ever!”

 

**

 

Someone in audience with talking computer types: “I think its so important to educate the masses. I have so much to offer.”

 

 Someone else in audience types: “I’m so happy, I love the energy in this room!”