halfin
Senior member
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2009
- Messages
- 540
- Reason
- PALS
- Diagnosis
- 08/2009
- Country
- US
- State
- CA
- City
- Santa Barbara
Having met a few PALS, I find myself at a loss about how to converse with people who can't talk. Sometimes they have speech synthesizers and sometimes not. I'm wondering what the people involved would prefer.
The conversations always feel awkward. I don't know whether to try to monopolize the conversation or to ask questions and then wait patiently for a response. Or if there is no speech device, to ask yes/no questions assuming they can signal in some way.
I don't know whether to directly discuss the difficulties, like saying "what signal will you use to mean yes? and no?"
Of course it's ironic that I feel uncertain about this since I will probably be in the same boat within a year or so. I should be able to anticipate how I will like things to work when I can't speak, but it is so hard to imagine what it will be like.
How have other people handled this?
The conversations always feel awkward. I don't know whether to try to monopolize the conversation or to ask questions and then wait patiently for a response. Or if there is no speech device, to ask yes/no questions assuming they can signal in some way.
I don't know whether to directly discuss the difficulties, like saying "what signal will you use to mean yes? and no?"
Of course it's ironic that I feel uncertain about this since I will probably be in the same boat within a year or so. I should be able to anticipate how I will like things to work when I can't speak, but it is so hard to imagine what it will be like.
How have other people handled this?