After trying to fight off the inevitable crashing and burning that came with the last few months, I lost the battle. Big time.

I knew it was coming, and I’ve had this crash and burn “scheduled” for two months. I’d even been counting down the days and hours until I could finally stop and relax for longer than a few hours.

But, alas, there is no rest for the wicked. Having just started this business venture, I knew that I just had to keep swimming, as Dory would say.

For the past two years, I have been a strong advocate for AI. I love it. I think that if it’s used well, it could be the biggest technological development ever. I’m always talking to ChatGPT about anything and everything.

As a content creator with Cerebral Palsy who uses AAC, the idea that I could use AI to drastically reduce the number of hours it takes to write an essay and the energy I’d have to expend each week was incredible, especially as I have recommitted to publishing an article every week. Do you think I have at least 10 hours a week to write an essay? Fuck no, not without neglecting other aspects of my life.

Especially these past two months.

I started this venture at a really fucking bad time. I had life shit that needed all my attention and resources for several months, or my life and the lives of the people I employ could have imploded – even as I type this article, I still don’t have answers to any of our questions. At the same time, I was preparing for my first boccia competition in two years.

But I knew I needed to start this business when I did, because it was becoming increasingly clear that I might need a regular income sooner rather than later. And the more I watch the system that has given me a life for the last thirteen years being driven into the ground harder than the missiles currently flying around the world, the more convinced I become that the only chance I have of keeping the life I’ve built is to somehow prioritise building an income with unlimited potential.

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To say I was busy was the understatement of the century. Writing an essay on top of the thousand appointments and reports I had to get done was just a ridiculous ask of myself. That’s already a tough ask for me any time, let alone while I’m trying to keep my life from falling apart.

Hell, ChatGPT basically wrote my last three articles from start to finish, with a lot of help from me, of course, because I didn’t have the time or energy to produce them myself. I could have tried to, and a few years ago, I would have tried to do it all myself and then punished myself for not being able to do the full-time jobs of at least three people. Fuck, I still punish myself every time I decide to listen to my body, because that’s just the kind of life I’m coming from.

AI means that I can technically meet every impossible standard I need to meet (why couldn’t it have been around eight to ten years ago, when I was basically doing that much work with no way of reducing how much I had to do?), so I feel the need to finally meet the potential I’ve been told I have. Work a job, build a business, play boccia, all at once, because, after all, there is no rest for the wicked, and I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

I can finally do everything at once with the help of AI. So, I do. I’m still tired and slowly killing myself, but hey. They were right, I can be everything I want at once, I just need to use tools that allow me to do that without killing myself quite as much as I was. And strip myself out of the process.

So, I did the only thing a sane content creator in 2026 does and made ChatGPT my partner at every single step of the process.

I’d discuss what I wanted to try to think about, think about it with AI as my sparring partner, write the bones of the piece I was working on, give that to AI to get feedback and edits, then repeat that cycle until the piece was complete.

That is a surprisingly effective but time-consuming process, though it is quicker than writing and editing everything myself.

However, since I’ve been so busy and focused on other parts of my life, I’ve needed to use AI for most of the grunt work.

I’d talk to ChatGPT about the article’s general idea, figure out which details to include, and guide it to write the article as I would. Then we’d wrestle it into something publishable, or at least something that made the right points and wasn’t a complete disaster. Sometimes I’d write a couple of rough paragraphs to work from, which made it easier, but it would still take a lot of back-and-forth between me and the AI to get a piece together.

But that’s not how I usually write. At all. And you could probably tell from the short sentences and paragraphs that I didn’t write those articles myself.

No matter how much I tried to train AI to write like me, it couldn’t. I fed it every example of my writing I could find, from speeches to old blog posts to a couple of short stories. I spent so many hours talking back and forth with it, trying to teach it to write in my style and avoid all the AI tells the internet loves to point out. But it still produced shit writing.

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When you tell AI you’re writing for Substack, it leans right into its own writing style and just loses all control to write a normal fucking paragraph.

Short sentences.

Lots of white space.

Neat points and arguments that have no life.

So it’s the exact opposite of what my style is. See what I did there?

I also genuinely enjoy thinking through ideas and writing. Sitting at my desk, music on, and just writing has always been a happy place for me. Sure, my body is nowhere near as young as it used to be, and I can no longer force myself to write faster than my natural pace without hurting my shoulder, which means I am slow as shit, but I do enjoy writing. It just takes forever, which, as a content creator trying to keep up with hustle culture, is painful.

After experimenting with a lot of AI-generated content and loving the convenience of having most of the work done for me in just a couple of sentence-long prompts, I chose to go back to writing the first drafts myself while quickly assembling my initial literature review for this newsletter.

I had almost an entire literature review prepared by AI. However, I still needed to read everything, check for accuracy, and truly understand the content because AI can still make mistakes. That’s when I realised that I would probably end up doing just as much work on the review as if I had just done it myself from the start.

What a fantastic time to decide to stop using AI to write! Having no fucking idea how I’m still upright, of course, I decide to return to hand typing everything now.

After getting a reasonable amount of work done in the five days after returning from State Titles, I woke up with a sharp pain in my stomach on Thursday.

That, unfortunately, meant I had to listen to my body for the first time in weeks, so I decided to have a bed day. I had my support worker cancel my appointment that afternoon, and I binge-watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine. For nine hours. Even though I only had two days before I had to have an article ready and scheduled.

That’s the reality of being a business owner with chronic illnesses and disability, unfortunately.

Even after feeling like death for the last few days, I still had an article to produce and publish, so I’ve had to keep going. My business doesn’t grow unless I have content out, so the algorithms like me, and my audience still maybe remembers me.

I’ve literally had to write a couple of hundred words and do all the editing on this article today before I could hit publish. Luckily, the weather was shit, so I had nothing better to do. Although I could have done with another day in bed, I can’t afford that luxury anymore.

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The assumption underneath most reactions is that this is about shortcuts or speed. That only makes sense if you think my work is built the same way as everyone else’s. It isn’t, and it never has been.

I come from a group of people who, for most of history, weren’t out here producing work like this at all. We were written about. Managed. Hidden. Explained. Not heard in our own words. I’m part of the first generation that actually gets to exist publicly like this. So when people jump to the idea that this must be copying something, they’re missing something obvious. There isn’t anything for it to copy. If it sounds different, that’s because it is. That’s the point.

Most people are using AI to produce more of what already exists. Faster content. Cleaner versions of voices you’ve already heard. More volume of the same thing. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m not trying to sound like something that already exists. I’m trying to get something out that hasn’t had the space to exist like this before.

From the outside, my life looks like a speed problem. It takes me longer to say things. Longer to write them. Longer to exist inside a system that rewards how quickly you can produce something. Of course I’m going to use the tools that let me keep up. That part is straightforward.

But AAC was never just a speed problem.

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AAC is autonomy. It’s being able to say whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want, to whoever I want. The second you introduce something that can generate what I might say for me, you’re not just making me faster. You’re shifting control.

That’s the line. Most people don’t even realise it’s there.

This isn’t just an AAC problem. It just shows up here first. This is one of the only places where you can actually see what’s being traded while it’s happening. Speed over control. Efficiency over authorship. Convenience over autonomy. Most people won’t notice that trade in their own lives until it’s already built in. Suggestions start to feel normal. Normal turns into default. Default quietly starts deciding what gets said.

I rely on this. Not in a productivity way. In a if I want to keep up with the world, I don’t really have a choice kind of way. I can feel the difference when I don’t use it. How long everything takes. How much energy it costs. How quickly I fall behind.

So when people say “just do it yourself,” they’re not asking me to work harder. They’re asking me to accept less. Less output. Less participation. Less presence. I’ve spent my entire life fighting against exactly that.

And that’s exactly why I can’t just hand control over either.

I’ve been writing for over twenty years. Long before AI. Long before any of these tools. Every sentence has always taken effort. Every word has always been a decision. If anything, this is the first time the gap between what I have to say and what I can actually get out into the world has started to close.

But the voice still has to come from me. Not because I’m precious about it. Because the whole point of having a voice is that it’s yours.

If I’ve spent my entire life fighting to have one, I’m not handing it over now just because we’ve found a faster way to use it.

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I hate making content. Or at least I hate what that phrase has come to mean. Because what I actually care about has nothing to do with feeding something constantly. It has everything to do with thinking properly. Sitting in an idea long enough that it changes shape. Writing it out. Speaking it through. Letting it feel like something instead of just producing something. Most of the time that comes from my life, or whatever has managed to hold my attention for more than ten minutes. Which is rare enough that I don’t ignore it when it happens.

Writing has never been optional for me. Not in a romantic sense. Not in a career sense. In a very literal sense. If I want to communicate anything at all, I have to build it word by word. So this was always going to be the thing whether I framed it that way or not. And somehow that’s turned into a job where I’m expected to constantly produce. Constantly show up. Constantly exist in a way that assumes consistency is something I can just decide to have. Which is funny when the only thing my body has ever been consistent at is being inconsistent.

I get why the system works like this. I’m not pretending I don’t. Attention is fragmented. Everything is crowded. If you’re not visible, you get replaced. It’s not dramatic. It’s just what happens. But I don’t actually think people have stopped reading. I think they’ve stopped waiting. And those are not the same thing. Even if everyone treats them like they are. The people I actually want to reach aren’t looking for constant noise. They’re looking for something that feels like it was worth the time it took to make.

I’m not going to stop writing. That’s not discipline talking. That’s just reality. Every time I try to step away, it circles back. I end up in front of a screen building sentences again. Which either means I’m supposed to be doing this. Or I’ve boxed myself into something I can’t get out of. I’m not sure which version annoys me more. But either way, it’s still true.

Once I’m in it, I don’t stop in a normal way. I go until something gives out. My body. My attention. Both. That cycle is messy. It’s inconvenient. It’s not optimised for anything. Which is also how I know it’s real. Because if I was faking this, I would have picked something that actually works with the world I’m trying to exist in.

Momentum matters now in a way that feels ridiculous until you realise it actually decides whether you’re visible or not. Once you lose it, you don’t just slow down. You disappear. Getting back isn’t just about doing good work again. It’s about being seen again. That’s a completely different problem.

People treat writing and content like they’re the same thing. They’re not. Content is always there asking for more. It wants frequency. It wants presence. It wants you even when you’ve got nothing worth saying. Writing doesn’t work like that. Writing shows up when there’s actually something to work through. It doesn’t care if that takes time. Or silence. Or space. Or disappearing for a while.

Somewhere along the way, writing got dragged into the content system. Now it’s expected to behave like it. Constant. Predictable. Scheduled. That’s where this stops being preference and starts being pressure. Because I don’t work like that. And I don’t think anything worth writing really does.

If I want to keep up with that system, I have to use AI. That’s not a statement. That’s just reality. Without it, I fall behind. I know that now. Not theoretically. Practically. And that’s where it starts to feel off. Even if everything looks like it’s working.

On paper, it’s a win. I can keep up. I can produce more. I can stay visible in a way I physically couldn’t before. That’s exactly what everyone tells you to aim for. But that assumes your best work comes from constant output. Mine never has.

My best work comes from disappearing. From sitting in something longer than is efficient. From letting ideas develop properly instead of forcing them into shape early. That doesn’t fit neatly into a system that rewards showing up every day. AI makes it very easy to ignore that. It removes the friction that used to force me to stop. It fills the gaps. It smooths things out. It keeps things moving even when I probably shouldn’t be moving at all.

And that’s where it gets uncomfortable.

Because I don’t know where the line is yet. Between using it to support my thinking. And using it to replace the space my thinking actually needs.

The risk isn’t that I’ll cross that line on purpose. It’s that I won’t notice when I already have.

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This has been sitting underneath everything for a while. I’ve been circling it because it’s easier to talk about the theory than admit what I’m actually doing. But at some point that stops being honest and just turns into avoidance.

So here it is.

I use AI constantly. I don’t use it inside my AAC system, not in my voice, not in the part that actually speaks for me. But I use it everywhere around that. In writing. In structuring. In thinking. In getting from what I know I want to say to something I can actually put out into the world without it taking hours I don’t have.

And the way people talk about this makes it sound like you press a button, something appears, and you either claim it or you don’t. That’s not what this is.

It’s a back and forth that doesn’t really stop once it starts. I throw something at it, it throws something back, I tear it apart, reshape it, push it in a different direction. Most of what survives that process doesn’t look much like what came out in the first place. Half the time I already know exactly what I want to say — I can feel it sitting there fully formed — but getting from that to actual words is where everything slows down. That gap is where this sits.

So yes, I use it. Not because I can’t think. Not because I want something else to say things for me. But because the world I’m trying to exist in is not waiting for me to take ten minutes per sentence and then politely rewarding me for the effort.

It changes things in ways that are hard to ignore once you notice them. It changes how fast something comes out. It changes how easy it is to keep going when I would normally stop. And it changes how tempting it is to accept something that’s close enough and move on instead of pushing it further.

If that makes people uncomfortable, fine. Because the alternative isn’t some ideal version of writing where everything is pure and untouched. It’s me getting left behind in a system that assumes speed is normal and that everyone can just show up and produce on demand. I type ten words a minute on a good day. I’m competing in a space where people can now produce more in an afternoon than I could in a week. Ignoring that doesn’t make it go away.

What does get to me is what happens when people notice from the outside. Suddenly it’s not “this is how the system works now.” It’s “you didn’t do your job properly.” As if I’ve cut a corner that invalidates the work itself. When really it’s a reflection of what this space actually demands — constant output, constant visibility, constant pressure to keep up whether that fits how you work or not. I’m not outside of that. I’m in it.

But there are things it doesn’t get to do.

It doesn’t get to decide what I’m saying. It doesn’t get to decide how I’m saying it. It doesn’t get to decide whether something gets published. If I’m not making those calls, it’s not mine — no matter how efficient it is or how good it looks on the surface.

I’ve also noticed that if something comes out too fast, too clean, too easy, I don’t trust it. Not because it’s necessarily bad, but because it probably hasn’t been pushed far enough to actually sound like me yet. That’s the point where I slow it down again. Break it. Rewrite it. Pull it back into something that feels like it came from the way I actually think rather than the fastest possible version of it.

Because my voice isn’t just the idea. It’s the way I move through it. The way it builds. The way it lands. If that disappears, it doesn’t matter how efficient the process was.

The problem is I don’t always want to do that. Sometimes I’m tired. Sometimes I just want to keep up. Sometimes “close enough” feels good enough in the moment even when I know it won’t hold up later. That’s the part no one really talks about. It’s not a clean decision between using AI or not using it. It’s a constant negotiation between keeping up and falling behind in a system that doesn’t give you space to opt out.

So that’s the line I’m holding.

It’s not perfect. It’s not fixed. I won’t get it right every time. But the real risk here isn’t AI itself — it’s what happens when I stop noticing I’m adjusting. When small decisions slide because they don’t seem like they matter. When “close enough” becomes the default and I stop questioning it.

Until one day I’m not choosing my words.

I’m just approving them.

That’s not happening. But only because I’m paying attention to it now in a way I wasn’t before. And that’s about as honest as I can be about where I’m at.

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I’m not.

If anything, I’m going to benefit from it more than most people.

I want it everywhere.

I just don’t think we understand what we’re doing when we put it in places it’s nowhere near ready for.

And AAC is one of those places.

Most of the time, AI solves a speed problem.

And AAC isn’t just a speed problem.

I’m the first to say that I want faster communication.

But this is not how we accomplish that.

Not yet.

AAC isn’t always about getting words out faster.

It’s about having the autonomy to say whatever we want, however we want, whenever we want, to whoever we want.

And that’s not the same thing as speed.

And when you introduce something that can generate what to say for you, you’re not just speeding things up.

You’re changing who’s in control.

I’ve spent most of my life and career fighting exactly this problem.

In life. With communication. Everything.

And now the one place I was confident we’d conquered is going in a direction even I’m not ready for.

And that fucking terrifies me.

I think AI is fantastic. The gaps between me and the rest of society are going to shrink rapidly.

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I can now write an essay in a couple of hours instead of days or weeks.

That massively expands what’s possible for me. Even this newsletter would have become a source of anxiety and stress just a few years ago.

I’ve got more than enough failed blogs and projects to prove that.

But now, three weeks in, I’m already ahead. I’ve got pieces scheduled, so I can take a week off to play in the State Titles without stressing myself out.

Before AI, I could have done that… if I worked all day, every day, for a month beforehand. And ignored my increasing need to rest (thanks, CP).

I know what it can do.

I’m just not sure it’s ready to be inside my voice yet.

And this is where it stops being theoretical.

Because I can already feel the shift happening.

The problem is that it won’t feel like a big shift when it happens.

It’s going to feel fucking fantastic.

It’ll feel like help.

You won’t notice it at first.

Hell, sometimes I can’t tell the difference myself.

And that’s the problem.

That shift won’t just sit in our work.

It’ll sit inside our voice.

It’s a very fine line between choosing our words and approving them.

It already is.

The moment you stop correcting it is the moment everything changes.

I’m already seeing that in my work.

I can get a lot generated with less than a sentence of context. And it almost sounds right.

If I didn’t know what I was doing, it’d be way too easy to accept the first thing it gave me.

If I didn’t already have a way of speaking — a way of wording things that’s recognisable — the temptation would be too strong.

To write half a thought and let it finish the rest.

Faster. Easier. Good enough.

But that’s just with AI on my computer.

Imagine if that were inside my communication device.

How would you know where I end and it begins?

Can you tell by reading this?

Probably not.

That’s because I’m constantly going back and forth with it.

I very rarely accept the first thing it gives me.

More often than not, I’ve already written the bones.

It’s just my editor. My thinking partner.

You think I have time to outline, write, edit, and properly promote everything?

Fuck no.

Especially not at the pace I need to keep up with right now.

And if that ability was sitting inside my vocal cords?

Mate…

I’d never have to write a full sentence again.

And that’s tempting as fuck.

And that’s the trade no one is really talking about.

Because if I’m not choosing the words, it’s not my voice.

And I’ve spent too long fighting for that to give it up now.

She’d just been decommissioned from actual walks, so we were both adjusting to whatever this new version of normal was supposed to be.

I was bored.

Then my phone lit up.

A Messenger notification from Mum. Three letters.

WTF.

This’ll be good, I thought.

It was.

In the worst possible way.

I opened the message and there it was. A perfect image, in the exact style my workplace uses for social media. Clean. Familiar. Corporate.

And then the words.

AI for iOS apps.

I work for an AAC company. One of the big ones.

Before you get your knickers in a knot, I’m very pro-AI. I have to be.

The gap between what I can produce and what most people can is only going to get bigger as this technology improves and spreads. I want it everywhere.

Just not in my AAC system.

Not yet.

I always knew this conversation was coming.

I just thought I’d have more time.

I don’t.

We’re already there.

And if my language is going to bother you, this is your warning.

I’ve thought about this too much, for too long, to clean it up now.

Grandma, you can close this email.

It gets worse from here.

The problem isn’t AI.

It’s what happens when you put it inside the one place I should always have control.

My AAC system.

My voice.

How I communicate, work, write, and access the world.

Because once you start mixing AI with AAC, this stops being a fun little innovation conversation and starts becoming an ethics one.

A big one.

AAC users have spent decades fighting to prove that our words are our own.

So if we’re still arguing about the legitimacy of Facilitated Communication forty-something years later, why in the fuck are we so eager to shove AI into the middle of this before most people even understand what it is?

People already question whether our communication belongs to us.

This just opens the door wider before we’re ready to deal with what walks through it.

And that’s the part that should make people uncomfortable.

Because I’ve been using AI constantly for the last two years.

I know what it can do.

And I know what it can’t.

It still can’t write like me without a lot of back and forth. A fucking lot.

Which means one of two things happens.

Either I spend even more time correcting it than I would just writing it myself.

Or I don’t.

And if I don’t, those aren’t my words anymore.

Yes, I used AI while writing this.

The ideas are mine. The decisions are mine. The words are still mine.

That line matters.

And that’s the clean version of this conversation.

The part I’m still trying to figure out is what this actually means for me.

That’s the part people don’t really talk about.

The moment where something sounds like you, looks like you, is close enough to pass, but isn’t actually yours.

I notice it immediately.

It’s subtle.

A sentence comes out faster than it should.

Too smooth.

Too clean.

For a second, it feels incredible. Like finally, something is working the way it’s supposed to.

Like I’ve been given access to the version of communication everyone else gets by default.

And then I read it back.

And I know.

I wouldn’t have said it like that.

Not the words. Not the structure. Not the tone.

It’s close.

Close enough that most people wouldn’t question it.

But I do.

Because I built every sentence I’ve ever said.

Word by word. Decision by decision.

That’s not a limitation.

That’s authorship.

People talk about AAC like it’s a workaround.

Something to avoid whenever possible.

Like it’s a slower version of something everyone else already has.

It’s not.

It’s a completely different relationship with language.

Every sentence costs something.

Time.

Energy.

Focus.

Choice.

You don’t just “say something.”

You decide it.

You commit to it.

You watch it appear in front of you before anyone else hears it.

So when something skips that process, it doesn’t just feel faster.

It feels wrong.

People assume speed is the goal.

It’s not.

Speed is convenient.

Control is everything.

Slower is how I know it’s mine.

Slower is where I decide what I actually mean.

Slower is where I catch myself before I say something I don’t want to.

Or decide to say it anyway, because fuck you.

If you remove that, you don’t just remove friction.

You remove authorship.

And that’s the part that makes AI in AAC different from everywhere else.

Because in most places, AI is helping you get to your words faster.

Here, it can replace the process that makes them yours in the first place.

And that is a very thin line.

One that’s easy to cross without realising.

Because it won’t feel like replacement at first.

It’ll feel like help.

It’ll feel like relief.

It’ll feel like finally catching up.

Until one day you realise you’re not correcting it anymore.

You’re accepting it.

And once you start doing that consistently, something shifts.

Not all at once.

Slowly.

Quietly.

Your sentences get easier.

Your decisions get fewer.

Your voice gets… smoother.

More predictable.

More acceptable.

Less you.

And the worst part is, it’ll still sound like you.

Good enough that no one questions it.

Good enough that you almost don’t either.

But that gap is still there.

Between what you would have said…

and what you let it say.

That’s the part I don’t think people are ready for.

Because this isn’t just a tech problem.

It’s an identity one.

AAC has always been about proving that we have a voice.

That we are the source of our own words.

That what comes out of these systems belongs to us.

So when we introduce something that can influence, generate, or reshape those words, we’re not just improving a tool.

We’re changing the relationship entirely.

And if we don’t handle that carefully, we’re going to end up back in a place we’ve already spent decades trying to get out of.

Where people question whether our words are really ours.

Where our authorship is up for debate.

Where someone else, or something else, is seen as part of the source.

That is not a hypothetical risk.

We’ve seen it before.

And we’re a lot closer to it than people want to admit.

I’m not saying don’t build it.

I’m saying don’t rush it.

Don’t prioritise speed over control.

Don’t solve one problem by creating a bigger one.

And don’t assume that what works everywhere else will work here.

Because this is different.

And if we get this wrong, we don’t just lose time.

We lose something a lot harder to get back.

Our voice.

There’s a version of this where I take the shortcut.

Where I let it finish the sentence.

Where I accept the version that’s close enough.

Because it’s easier.

Because I’m tired.

Because sometimes I don’t want to spend ten minutes building something I could get in ten seconds.

And that’s the part no one really wants to admit.

It’s not just about control.

It’s about temptation.

Because the trade isn’t obvious at first.

It feels like relief.

It feels like finally not having to fight for every word.

It feels like being able to keep up.

And I want that.

I really do.

But I also know what I’d be giving up.

Not all at once.

Not dramatically.

Just a little, every time I don’t push back.

Every time I don’t fix it.

Every time I let “close enough” be enough.

Until one day I’m not choosing my words anymore.

I’m approving them.

So the question isn’t whether AI belongs in AAC.

It’s what it looks like when it does.

Because it will.

The cat is out of the bag.

If this is going to exist in AAC, I still need to be the source.

It can suggest.

It can support.

But it cannot decide.

If I’m not choosing the words, it’s not my voice.

Not everything that feels slow is broken.

Some of it is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.

Slower is where I decide what I actually mean.

Slower is where my voice exists.

If you remove that completely, you don’t just make things easier.

You erase the process that makes the words mine.

And people need to be able to trust that what comes out of these systems is actually ours.

Not because we owe anyone proof.

But because we’ve spent decades fighting to be believed in the first place.

We don’t get to go backwards on that.

And none of this works if the people building it aren’t the people living it.

Because this isn’t theoretical.

This is daily.

I’m not against AI in AAC.

I’m against losing control of my own voice.

And if those two things ever become the same thing, we’ve got a bigger problem than people realise.

If you’ve ever seen me speak, you’ve heard this story.

If you haven’t — welcome. This explains a lot about why I am the way I am.

I’ve told it at conferences, turned it into speeches, written it down a million times, and explained it to random people who asked one too many questions.

It’s kind of my thing.

But this is the Substack version.

The full one.

From the animal signs… to accidentally becoming one of the best Minspeak users in the world.

When I was a baby, Mum and Dad took me to Sydney for a week of therapy, where I started learning sign language.

And apparently — this is my favourite part — the only words they taught me were animal names.

Which, even as a baby, was not helpful at all.

So when we got home, I just started making up my own signs and hoped they’d figure it out.

I went through a phase where I’d put my right arm in the air, confidently invent a sign, and stare at my parents like:

Come on. This is obvious.

Eventually, they figured out one of them meant balloon.

And apparently I gave them a look that can only be described as:

thank fuck.

That was the beginning of what I like to call Siobhan Speak.

A few years later, I learned how to sign letters so I could spell things out.

But before that, I was using picture books — basically a DIY version of what we’d now call a PODD.

I couldn’t even turn the pages properly, but I’d try anyway.

And that’s how Mum knew I knew there were more words.

Then came the Big Mac buttons.

You know the ones — someone records a phrase, and when you press it, it speaks.

I refused.

Absolutely not. Not happening.

Because — and I stand by this — I don’t think many people enjoy communicating in someone else’s voice.

Even as a kid, I was like… no.

Then I got a Bob the Builder game.

Tiny buttons. About the size of keys on a DV4.

And I got really good at pressing them.

That’s how Mum realised I could actually access a communication device properly — isolate one finger, hit a target, do it consistently.

That changed everything.

Mum went to a course with my speechie and OT, learned how to program a device, and they organised a trial with a DV4.

She programmed a few things.

And without anyone really teaching me how to use it…

I just worked it out.

I knew where things were. I could have conversations. I got it.

I used that device all through primary school.

And honestly? It worked.

Everyone around me knew how to program it.

If I needed something, it got added.

I did school plays, assemblies — everything.

I wasn’t sitting on the sidelines.

Then came Year 6.

New device.

New system.

And this is where everything changed.

This is where I met Minspeak.

And I hated it.

Immediately.

I’d gone from a keyboard I knew, to a screen full of icons that made absolutely no sense.

Smaller buttons. More of them. No obvious logic.

I couldn’t just type anymore.

I had to find words.

Which, at the time, felt like a personal attack.

I was like… this is bullshit.

I had a few sessions with my speechie.

Some help from my Boccia friends.

And then… nothing.

No one really teaching me.

So Mum told me to explore.

Get stuck.

Look things up.

Figure it out.

And slowly — very slowly — I did.

Not in a nice, linear way. Just… over time.

Because it was faster.

Like, way faster.

At some point, I realised something else.

Mum wasn’t going to keep programming everything for me.

Not because she didn’t care — because she was busy.

And also because… this was becoming my responsibility.

So I waited.

And waited.

And then eventually went:

…right. Fine. I’ll do it myself.

I was using an eco2 at the time, and the programming tools were actually pretty decent.

So I taught myself.

No big moment. No formal training.

Just… needing something and not wanting to wait anymore.

And I just didn’t stop.

Fast forward fifteen years.

I’m now one of the best Minspeak users in the world.

Which sounds dramatic, but also… it’s not wrong.

I was invited by Bruce Baker — the guy who literally invented Minspeak — to speak at an international conference.

(It didn’t happen because of the pandemic, which is still rude, but the invite existed.)

I now work with Liberator Ltd as an ambassador.

I’ve worked on projects that let people control an iPhone through their communication device.

So yeah.

When I say I know Minspeak…

I mean it.

Since then, I’ve done all the normal life things.

Finished school.

Moved out.

Started uni.

Dropped out.

Built a career.

And now?

I run a business.

I speak.

I write.

I build things.

All because I have AAC.

Not in spite of it.

Because of it.

If you’re a parent reading this in the middle of the night, googling everything you can think of…

You don’t need all the answers right now.

You just need to give your child access to communication

and believe them when they show you what they’re capable of.

Because I promise you —

there is a version of your child you haven’t met yet.

And they’re probably going to surprise you.

If this is your world — AAC, disability, communication, or just figuring life out in a body that doesn’t cooperate — that’s what I write about here.

You can subscribe if you want more of it.

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I’m Siobhan Daley. Welcome to my newsletter.

I’ve got no idea what I’m doing with this, to be honest. I’ve been attempting the content creator path for a few years now, and nothing has really stuck, because I don’t like creating content per se. I love writing though, and after running a failed blog - or rather, a few of them - I realised that I don’t want to write for SEO, or whatever. I just want to write, share my thoughts, feelings and experiences, and grow an audience of cool and weird people who are just as interested in the same shit I am, and build from there.

So, who am I and why should you care?

I’m a woman with Cerebral Palsy who uses a power chair and communication device. I’m also a public speaker and writer currently writing my first book. I’m an elite boccia athlete. I’m also a devoted dog mum to my greyhound, Winter. All round, I’m pretty fucking awesome.

Apologies to my family members who will no doubt be my first subscribers, but I need to build this as a place where I am myself, so you’ll have to excuse my language in these newsletters.

I’m building some pretty awesome things, in my opinion. I mean, I’m writing books, I’m starting my own newsletter, I’ve finally succumb to the inevitability of building a social media career - ugh. For someone who is addicted to it, I really fucking hate building a social media presence. But, here I am, giving it yet another crack.

I don’t know what this will turn into yet, but it will probably be a weird and wonderful mix of disability, AAC, writing, sport, and whatever I can’t stop thinking or shut up about that week. Yeah, I’m my own niche. Welcome to the chaos that is my life.

I’ll probably send something out once a week, but if you’re here, you know that life with a disability never goes to plan. If any of this sounds like your kind of chaos, you’re in the right place.

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