Once we were mighty, now we grow silent. The sad tale of carers, left to save themselves

Rebecca writes of this day and the impact so well. I personally know so many parents who have been pushed to their breaking point. My heart aches.
open.substack.com/pub/rebekahc...

The Government must apologise to disabled adults, children and their whānau Signed by Awhi Ngā Mātua, IHC,  Disabled Persons Assembly NZ Inc, Parent to Parent, Disability Connect, Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, NZEI Te Riu Roa, Parents of Vision Impaired PVINZ,...

Has it already been a year.... In my world, 18 March is the day everything changed. Right up there with other historic moments. If you know, you know. 🥹
our.actionstation.org.nz/petitions/th...

Image is the “Tendril Theory” cartoon, original located at eisforerin.com

My first post here definitely has to be Tendril Theory, because when I made this in 2015 I had no idea how often it would be ripped off. Tell your friends and your enemies to tag me please 😂

I have imported most of my pre2025 tweets over. They will all be out of time alignment. I did not pay 1k+ times on the 24 January 😂

Well mass importing leads to some strange things. That didn't age well.. back then I was still married to a man and didn't realise that I actually am queer. Still love linguistics though!

Today is a significant day - 27 years ago I lost my best friend Roy in a car accident. He taught me so much - including much of my early tech knowledge. So to honour him today, I have attempted to bring over some of my old Twitter archive before deleting that account :)

Let’s give them something to gestalt about Gestalt language processing, Natural Language Acquisition, autism, echolalia, and scripting—it’s the hottest topic in the SLP world. But what does the evidence say?

theinformedslp.com/review/let-s-g…

and oh can we make pyschiatristry, general medicine, pyschology and allied health safe places for actually autistic people to train and practice.

(e) experiment - I also see lot of autistics trying different things to try to figure out what works but feeling too unsupported to discuss these experiments with the prescriber and get guidance and support to do this safely and effectively

(c) lose trust - it can be so so so hard for me to encourage someone to seek medical care when they (accurately) argue the "they don't get/believe/understand me"

it is pretty hard to convince someone that you are not drug seeking or exaggerating side effects on your own if they don't believe you. This is really infuriating and leads my clients to

Such an important project

i.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/1296…

Once again up late pondering the stories of all the families I know

emilywrites.substack.com/p/five-things-…

Please be tender today. Many are feeling attacked and shamed for not sending their children to a place that isn't working for them - yet! It doesn't have to be like this

Where are the "incentives" to fix the systematic problems?!

Sigh. I despair tonight

🤦‍♀️ I meant normally AVOIDABLE errors

This is a conversation we really need to have in these professions. It is real, wrong, and upsetting#mySLTday #ableism

dorseyslp.com/blog/ableism-i…

And so today I treat myself to this delightful panna cotta, because we all need some joy and colour and sparkle right about now

I have seen some incredible educators, disability workers, and health care workers step up and dig so deep. I see you and I see the cracks from the enormous strain

Systems I rely on are stretched to the point of making normally unavoidable errors and creating some huge pressures on the families I work with

So grateful when they let my autistic clients wait in the car instead of a packed waiting room.

Really, this should be more of an option, safer with covid and a really key disability accommodation

I can do most of it if I have the right equations and illustrations, but dropped out of my engineering before we got to this content and my autistic students need me to level up!

Option 1 - Sky Pirate
Option 2 - Destiny's Bounty

If you were to make a Lego build fly, which of the two options would you make fly out of these two sets?

#DecisionsAreHard

Photos in the next tweet

And in other advocacy news, it felt good to represent @AssistiveTechNZ and uplift the ongoing calls for te reo speech synthesis technology to support AAC and other applications last month

Our submission is around the 2:31 mark

m.facebook.com/video.php/?vid…

Many of us, including the team over at @AssistiveTechNZ, contributed to the @Stats_NZ disability survey

I am so relieved to see Speech-language Therapy, AAC and AT, and neurodiversity highlighted so clearly.

We need data about these things to address the pressing gaps

Looking forward to giving this workshop this week!

wellingtonloop.net.nz/event/practica…

At least there is beauty to sooth us at the end of another day of watching too many kids let down

I love my career and profession.. But this last fortnight has been so heavy. It is so hard seeing kids not get what they need in education over and over again. I will keep showing up, but I can feel moments of desparation about the cracks, gaps, and misunderstandings

Starting my day with an 815 am talk on ADHD is the least ADHD friendly-thing I have done this term, but also I love talking to teachers about my passion for getting inclusive education right, so it was worth it 🥳