Harry Oliver

With BSL, the interpreter is a human.
With AAC, the interpreter is a piece of tech.

This is a world away from what I experience communicating in BSL.

#1 Signing is so expressive I can show heaps of personality otherwise wiped/sanitised by AAC.

#2 People see me as a person communicating when signing and not as a piece of technology that doesn’t involve the same connection.

#2 People don’t often engage with me the way they do with Jordyn in this video. They often receive and interact with my AAC as if there is no person behind it. I.e., I am text to be skim read; I am text-to-speech to hear the text without due attention (often while focusing on something else).

Communicating through a rigid, limited template that doesn’t let my whole expression come out feels, at best, stifling. At worst, a barrier I don’t have the energy to overcome so I just don’t share my hilarious anecdote, my view on the topic, or order than extra side I want before the waiter’s gone.

#1 Fully participating and feeling a sense of belonging in fast-paced conversations just isn’t possible with existing AAC for me. I want to communicate in my idiosyncratic language and for you to see my personality in how I communicate.

YouTube video by Particle6 TV AI Commissioner | Comedy Sketch | Particle6

Why can we AI generate whole actors in 4K with such range in tone, intonation and expression while my AAC has less natural speech than a self checkout? Because advances in AI aren’t looking to help disabled people or let us shape tools we need.

SEVERE CONDITION CRITERIA

The Green Paper is diminished, but please lobby against the ‘severe condition criteria’—a dangerous, discriminatory UC change that will push new claimants into financial + psychological precarity.

Video cuts off due to Bluesky length but ends: please lobby!

#TakingThePIP

Iceland built 1,756 wheelchair ramps in the past 4 years. Why can’t other countries do that? Haraldur “Halli” Thorleifsson has helped build thousands of ramps across Iceland. Now, he wants to bring accessibility to other countries.

Abundance!
www.fastcompany.com/91307514/ice...

#INSAR2025 researchers, if you actually talk to autistic people of all ages, disability profiles, and communication profiles, you'll find that a non-innate commonality is … trauma. And as this is avoidable, this is one of the root areas from which all autism research should proceed. #neurodiversity

#A2ndVoice Autistic Adults Aged 50+ Years Meet up. Thur 17th April, from 11am-noon. For autistic people aged 50+ years,. The theme is Processing pre-diagnosis life. It's free, but you must register at https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrdeyrrzsoHtH9VUVg37CPtp_fcioUMz4W#/registration

If you're #autistic & aged over 50, you can register for Thursday's chat. (17th April, 11am-12. Free) It's a relaxed safe space for older autistic people to meet each other. We'll be chatting about Processing pre-diagnosis life- something most late diagnosed #autistic pple go through
#AutisticElders

The world is now a harder place for neurodivergent people | Letters Letters: Readers respond to an article by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett on the ‘overdiagnosis’ of mental health conditions

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

The Disability Price Tag report of 2024 by Scope (updated annually) put the current extra cost per month on average for a disabled household at £1010. PER MONTH. And our Labour government wants to slash the support money people are offered?

For last year, the DWP release figures that there was 0% fraud for PIP, so the announcement that they're going to make PIP harder to get is just admitting they are restricting it from people who could and should be in receipt of PIP.

Square Canva graphic with a white background. In the lower right corner is a photo of Dr. Vikram Jaswal, a man with olive skin, short black hair and beard, and glasses. Black text reads, "Access to communication is a fundamental human right, affecting everything from educational opportunities to the ability to participate in medical decision making. I believe we should be supporting folks to learn to communicate in as many ways as they can." Next, red text reads, "Dr. Vikram Jaswal" Smaller text in the lower right corner reads, "@ThinkingAutism" and "tinyurl.com/VikramJaswalAtTPGA"

"By virtue of being autistic and not having a language-based way to communicate, nonspeaking autistic people are not given nearly the level of autonomy (or opportunities to develop autonomy) that most non-autistic people are." Dr. Vikram Jaswal, at TPGA:

thinkingautismguide.com/2022/03/beli...

Deloitte’s first Disability Inclusion @ Work 2024 survey reveals that workplace accessibility is a significant challenge for many One-quarter of respondents who have disclosed their disability, neurodivergence or health condition at work have requested accommodations. Of those, 74% have had at least one request rejected; almost ...

Fascinating report that surveyed 10,000 disabled employees globally on their perspectives on how their employer supported their disabilities. Some findings include... 🧵

#disability #EDI #DEI #ReasonableAdjustments #Accommodations ♿
www.deloitte.com/global/en/ab...

Considering the Autistic advantage in qualitative research: the strengths of Autistic researchers Autism is often viewed as an impairment, preventing Autistic individuals from achieving success in the world. We argue that, Autism can be an enhancement, particularly in some professional contexts...

I have never felt so validated or vindicated when reading a journal article as when I read this. It talks about the many strengths and some challenges that autistic people face in the workplace
A 🧵 on the recommendations
#ASD #autism #ActuallyAutistic ♿ #disabled
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

How we developed sign language for ten of the trickiest climate change terms Rather than literally translating English words, experts have focused on visually representing the underlying concepts for these terms.

Creating #BritishSignLanguage signs for abstract #Climate terms is different from tangible objects so how did #Deaf scientists, #Deaf educators & #Linguists work together to create 400 #environmental #science signs?

Read more: tinyurl.com/4d9h84kv

#Langsky

I have started a Behavioural Science starter pack - just let me know if you would like to be added - see go.bsky.app/CzLwTyZ

Started this Specialty Coffee ☕️ Starter Pack!
I hope to continue to add more strong minds with diverse perspectives in order to organize Specialty Coffee supply chain and development news and the forces which give it form.

go.bsky.app/QesPsNB

And here are some analog photographers I dig. Because film photography is gorgeous and good for the soul. #BelieveInFilm go.bsky.app/2tD9vhT