Friendships

Also called Peer relationships and AAC, Making friends

Friendship runs on quick, unimportant talk. Here is how to make and keep friends when every sentence is slow.

What it is

Friendship between people is mostly built from small, fast, pointless exchanges: a joke, a comment on someone's shoes, an argument about football. AAC is slow and most vocabularies are built for needs, so a person who uses it can ask for a drink but cannot join the conversation about last night's television. The result is a person who is surrounded by adults and has no friends their own age.

That is a vocabulary problem and a partner problem, and both can be fixed.

Who it can help

Children and adults who use AAC and the people who love them. School staff who have noticed that the pupil with the device is always with a teaching assistant and never with a classmate. Adults in supported living whose only relationships are with paid staff.

It is honest to say that it takes effort from the other side too. A friendship where one person does all the waiting is hard to sustain, and children in particular need showing how.

How it works

Vocabulary first. Friends need comments, not requests: cool, rubbish, no way, that's funny, I love that, you're joking. They need greetings and goodbyes that sound like their age group, humour, and the names of the people, bands, games and teams that matter to them. A fourteen-year-old whose device says "I would like" and never "mate" has been given a stranger's voice.

Partners second. Peers need to know how to talk with someone who uses AAC: wait, do not finish the sentence, ask yes-and-no questions if it helps, look at the person and not the device. A ten-minute session with a class does more than a year of adult support. Adults, meanwhile, need to step back: a teaching assistant sitting between two children is a wall.

Time third. Friendship needs unstructured time together, and for a person who is timetabled from morning to night that has to be deliberately made.

Getting started

This week, ask the person who they like, and add those names to the board. Then add ten comments in their own style; ask a sibling or friend their age what people actually say.

At school, ask the class teacher to run a short session on communicating with the pupil, ideally with the pupil leading it. Ask for the teaching assistant to sit behind rather than beside at break.

For adults, look for a club, group or class around something the person actually likes, not a group for disabled people as such. And make sure the device goes too, charged, with the words for that place on it.

Where to get help

1Voice runs events where children and adults who use AAC meet each other, which is often where the first real friendships happen. Communication Matters has an AAC user community. Mencap runs friendship and social groups for adults with a learning disability. National Autistic Society covers friendship for autistic children and adults. Scope has an online community for disabled people and families.