October is AAC Awareness Month. This year, ISAAC’s theme is Say What? We celebrate this year’s theme on the blog by hearing from Jessica Smith. She shares her story and the work she is doing. Content warning: As she describes her experiences when she was younger, in school, initial fears about police officers, and diagnosis this may be triggering for some. Thank you, Jessica, for sharing your story with us.

by Jessica Smith, NWACS guest blogger

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The views expressed in this post are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of NWACS. No endorsement by NWACS is implied regarding any device, manufacturer, resource, or strategy mentioned.

I thought this would be a good story to share with you all. I am a class of 2023 high school graduate. I have done impressive work in AAC and assistive technology. Many people are interested in what I do because I am only 20 years-old and I started this when I was 15.

In January 2023, I was on my local news as a hometown hero for the communication boards I make for first responders. Here is a picture of one of the many police departments I have given my boards to.

Image is of seven police officers in uniform holding Jessica’s communication boards.

Now I will tell you about how I started the communication boards. Please remember when I started making these boards I was young, had behavior difficulties, and was immature. When I was in elementary school I had a lot of behavior issues. I was just diagnosed with high functioning autism.

When I finally got the help I needed, my support team used Boardmaker symbols with me. They made me a visual schedule and some social stories. They also made me a reward chart.

Now we go a little further in the story to the summer between 8th and 9th grade. By this time, I was not using visual supports, but I was still very interested in the symbols. Did you know that symbols can get your brain very excited when you see them? Don’t count on me for that. I learned that from a training for making visual supports.

Anyways when I started making these, I was bored at home. My mom was at work, and I started looking up visual supports. I came across some websites. I created a Pinterest account where I get most of my ideas from today. One of the websites I found was Autism Risk Management. It is by a guy that does training to first responders on people with autism. I was moved by what I read on his website and that’s what made me make my communication boards. You see when the police interact with someone who has autism, they may not be able to understand what is going on. For example, an officer might think the person is on drugs.

Here is the link to the first websites I found and the website for Autism Risk Management.

Autism Risk Management

Victories N Autism

Living Well with Autism

When I started showing these communication boards, I was very afraid of the police. I was afraid that they would try and hurt me because they would not understand my autism. They proved me wrong. They were very interested in my communication boards. I am even still good friends with them today. I have been meeting with the police to this day.

And image of five people. Jessica is standing in the middle with two Tobii Dynavox employees on each side of her.

To conclude this post I would like to tell you what I do today. Today I partner with many companies, including Tobii Dynavox, to help them with AAC boards and training first responders. I also do a lot of work with teachers and therapists creating visuals for them. Also I do 3D printing for people with physical disabilities. I also attend lots of state meetings with Tech OWL (Technology For Our Whole Lives). I talk about what I do with AAC and learn more about building assistive technology. I hope you enjoyed my story.