Communication partner

Also called Conversation partner, Communication partner training, Partner strategies

Every conversation has two ends. The person holding the device is only one of them, and the other end decides how well it goes.

What it is

A communication partner is whoever is on the other side of the conversation: the parent, the teaching assistant, the nurse, the brother, the bus driver. The phrase exists because we needed a word for the half of the exchange that gets no assessment, no device and no training, and yet does most of the work.

If you were handed a new language and a keyboard and told to get on with it, you'd want the people around you to slow down, show you how it worked and give you time to answer. That is the whole job. The rest of this group of entries breaks it into pieces.

Who it can help

Anyone who spends time with a person who uses AAC, signs, or communicates through gesture and behaviour. It helps most at the beginning, when the person has a system and nobody around them knows how to be on the other end of it.

It is not a role you need a qualification for. But it is a skill, and it is a mistake to assume the person's family are naturally good at it just because they love them. Most of us talk too much and wait too little.

How it works

The evidence on partner training is consistent: teaching the people around someone to model, wait, and respond changes how much the person communicates, often more than changing the device does. The core skills are short. Model on the system while you speak. Wait for far longer than feels natural. Comment rather than question. Follow what the person is attending to. Presume competence throughout.

Speech and language therapists usually teach these in a handful of sessions, sometimes filmed, so the partner can watch themselves interrupting. Watching yourself is uncomfortable and it works.

Getting started

Pick one skill for one week. Most people start with wait time, because it costs nothing and the change is visible in days. Count silently to ten after you say something, and don't fill the gap.

Put the system where you can reach it too. A communication board on the fridge, or the Talk board open on a tablet on the table, means you can point to a symbol as you speak without making a production of it.

Tell everyone in the house the plan. A partner strategy that one adult uses and three others don't confuses the person and stalls the progress.

Where to get help

Communication Matters runs partner-focused training days and publishes plain guidance for families. The ACE Centre offers courses for parents and staff, some free. Your local NHS speech and language therapy service should offer partner training as part of any AAC plan; if they haven't, ask, because the RCSLT expects it to be there.