Greetings, I’m Anthony Arnold, an augmentative and alternative communicator from San Tan Valley, Arizona. I like to believe I was raised right along beside the development and introduction of augmentative and alternative communication and assistive technology devices. Therefore, I have gotten to experience both its strengths and weaknesses.
I have always had the desire to communicate something. One of the first memories of this, was sitting at home in North Dakota, and noticing the first snowfall of the season was happening. Just like any other kid, I was excited that was occurring, but I had no way of communicating that to my parents. I somehow determined if I pointed to the refrigerator and then to the outside window, I just might be able to get that point across to my parents. As you may imagine, that drove my parents crazy until they looked up to the window and noticed it was snowing. I guess that was early Minspeak, using two or three things to formulate language. My parent’s frustration quickly turned into excitement, realizing I could communicate.
Shortly afterwards, my first communication board with six symbols was introduced to me. This was perfect timing, being I was enrolled at a preschool program, where I could practice my communication skills with both kids my own age and adults, who were both teachers and caregivers.
Over the next couple of years, I outgrew a number of communication boards with bigger vocabularies. As I was approaching elementary school, my parents, teachers and therapists were getting concerned about physical board space. They knew we couldn’t continue adding more vocabulary without making it overwhelming for both myself and communication partners.
Early in elementary school was when I first received my Touch Talker from PRC-Saltillo. That was one of my happiest days of my childhood to be finally given a voice I could independently access. Not Only the freedom to communicate, it also made greater gains educationally by the expanded vocabulary I now had access to. Therefore, I was fully included in all of my classes at school, graduating high school in 1996.
Over the years, I have gone through most of the communication devices and software PRC-Saltillo has introduced
From experiencing this type of liberation in all aspects of my life from a communication device with a robust language system. I started dreaming of someday helping PRC-Satillo with our mission. During high school, I started working as an Ambassador, getting to various conferences to demonstrate the powers of Minspeak. In the early 2000s, I got hired as a Remote Troubleshooter for weekend coverage. Now with being affiliated with the company, I have enjoyed the chance to network with other augmentative and alternative communicators, family members and professionals on a wide range of things.
Feel free to reach out to me, if you would like to have a product demonstration done. I would even feel comfortable doing custom work on communication devices to make them more a part of the end user to receive the most from AAC!
