Nonspeaking Communication Aide

The founders of Humanities 101 are no strangers to selective mutism. Having parental experience observing it in our children and personal experience of occasionally finding it difficult to make any words come out, one of the first resources that we decided to focus on developing was a nonspeaking communication aide.

We took our initial prototype to a classroom to get opinions from a group of autistic youth. To say they had lots of valuable feedback is an understatement.

Less is more was the overwhelming consensus from the young focus group. We narrowed down the emotions as it was explained to us that with these four key emotes an individual could easily express how they were feeling by pointing to one or two of them at a time.

We adjusted the size of the sticker to see if individuals found it easier to use as a square instead of a circle.

In the finalized design we added an option to indicate the basic need of a bathroom, food and/or water, a quieter space or a break from the location or activity currently happening. As a result, we ultimately landed on a rectangle as the shape that allowed optimal communication.

What started out as a micro-accommodation in a classroom became a useful tool during a variety of public events.

In June of 2024, Humanities 101 offered a variety of micro-accommodations at several pride events in multiple states, including the communication aide sticker in the first trial run of the Autism Inclusion Micro Outreach Kits.

Before we even officially launched the outreach kits to promote neuro-divergent empowerment over the summer we were approached by multiple people in our volunteer network who wanted to provide outreach with the stickers in their own community.

As a result, a version of the outreach kits with the nonspeaking communication aide stickers were distributed during a sci-fi convention in Florida and a bible vacation school food drive in New York. Our volunteer network, a dedicated team of neuro-divergent and those adjacent to the neuro-divergent (friends, family and caregivers) impacted their own community spaces with neuro-inclusive empowerment.

In addition to providing the nonspeaking communication aide stickers at our speaking events and offering them in our Autism Inclusion Micro Outreach Kits they are available to order from our RedBubble store. Making them available on a print on demand website allows them to be more accessible to anyone who isn’t able to attend one of our speaking events.

From the multiple opportunities of outreach where the nonspeaking communication aide sticker was highlighted the feedback has been exceptionally positive.

One comment that was unexpected but a favorite of ours, “The sticker is great and we learned that they were slime-proof.”

Other comments of feedback we received about the nonspeaking communication aide sticker included that they were great for shy individuals and there wasn’t an age limit with those who were interested in them.

We were told that distributing the nonspeaking communication aide stickers at events was easy because they didn’t require instructions or explanations.

In addition to them being helpful for shy individuals and individuals with select mutism we were told that they were helpful to individuals because English was their second language.

In all of the things that we’ve handed out during outreach (stickers, earplugs, fidgets, candy) the stickers were some of the most popular. People expressed that they liked the idea that if they didn’t feel like speaking that they had another option to communicate if they had the sticker. They also expressed that they liked the idea that if someone else was having trouble speaking that they had something they could offer to help.

Simply normalizing that not everyone can easily communicate their needs in moments of dysregulation, one of our goals with them, is something that everyone using the stickers could appreciate.

In addition to having the nonspeaking communication aide available as a sticker we also offer it as a magnet, mousepad, and desk mat.

With the impact that we have already had with the nonspeaking communication aide stickers, development of more neuro-inclusive and empowerment tools are already underway and yet again with the help of our volunteer network we are already trialing new micro-accommodations in New York and California, so STAY TUNED!