Rachel R Romeo @RachelRRomeo I just had such an affirming experience On my 8hr intl flight back from a conference I sat next to a fatherson In broken English the father began to apologize warn me that his 10 yr-old son had severe nonverbal autism and that this would like be a difficult journey 1 259 pm 28 Aug 19 Twitter Web App 413K Retweets 178K Likes Rachel R Romeo @RachelRR 18h Replying to @RachelRRomeo I told him not to worry I was a speech-language pathologist with lots of experience with minimally verbal kiddos Challenging behaviors began even before take off screaming hitting me and grabbing for my things The father repeatedly apologized but did little else 2 55 192K t 813 Rachel R Romeo @RachelR 18h I asked him how his son preferred to communicate He didn't seem to understand P

Rachel R Romeo @RachelRRomeo I just had such an affirming experience On my 8hr intl flight back from a conference I sat next to a fatherson In broken English the father began to apologize warn me that his 10 yr-old son had severe nonverbal autism and that this would like be a difficult journey 1 259 pm 28 Aug 19 Twitter Web App 413K Retweets 178K Likes Rachel R Romeo @RachelRR 18h Replying to @RachelRRomeo I told him not to worry I was a speech-language pathologist with lots of experience with minimally verbal kiddos Challenging behaviors began even before take off screaming hitting me and grabbing for my things The father repeatedly apologized but did little else 2 55 192K t 813 Rachel R Romeo @RachelR 18h I asked him how his son preferred to communicate He didn't seem to understand Perhaps this was a language barrier but I think instead the child had very little experience with communication therapy I put away the talk I was working on & asked if I could try He nodded 3 11 181K t 705 Rachel R Romeo @RachelR 18h I tried to see if he was stimulable for a communication board I started by pulling up some standard images for basic nouns on my computer but I could tell that screens really bothered him So I summoned my god-awful drawing skills and tried to create a very! low-tech board 4 13 183K t 680 Rachel R Romeo @RachelRR 18h And by god it clicked I made symbols for the things he was grabbing for his favorite stuffed penguin and for his dad He took to it very quickly I introduced way more symbols that I normally would but hey how often do we get an 8-hour session?! 5 20 226K t 768 Rachel R Romeo @RachelRR 18h By the end of the flight he had made several requests initiated several times & his behaviors had reduced quite a bit The father was astounded clearly no one had ever tried an AAC approach with him I gave him the paper & showed him how to use it and he nearly cried 6 105 285K t 992 Rachel R Romeo @RachelRR 18h This was the human desire for communication pure and simple To connect with another person and share a thought Communication is a basic human right and I was overjoyed to help someone find it What a privilege and a gift 7 172 t 2713 485K Rachel R Romeo @RachelRR As I face the upcoming job cycle and the nearly endless imposter syndrome of academia this was precisely the reminder I needed about why I love studying languagecommunication development It was a good day to be an 18h #SLP! 88 2387 t 2987 94K This👏Is👏Verry👏Wholesome Mememore...