Second year Master’s student, Raissa Dempsey summed up what a lot of students conveyed about their experience with having Rob Rummel-Hudson visit their AAC seminar class on Tuesday, Sept. 30th:
“It is easy to get caught up with what the textbooks, research, and experts in the field say about best practice, but I think it is parents and families who can teach us the most. ”
The AAC community at Penn State was thrilled to have Rob Rummel-Hudson, dad to Schuyler, return to the seminar on “Working effectively with individuals who require AAC and their families.” Rob has written extensively about his experiences as a father in his book, Schuyler’s Monster: A Father’s Journey with His Wordless Daughter, and also in his blog “Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords”.
Many students commented on how Schuyler’s experience with AAC is a critical reminder for how no one is well described by a label — for example, Emily Hobbs noted that using the term “normal” as a reference point is particularly problematic when everyone is an individual. Raisa Shvartsman was also drawn to Schuyler’s process of coming to terms with accepting “the idea of using a device to help her communicate…and making it her own. ”
Merissa Ekman is in her first year with the Master’s program and commented, “I loved hearing what he had to say directly from him in raw form, not edited and completely from his heart.”