Human Library: sharing stories with augmentative and alternative communication

Conductive Education Queensland has been "borrowing" human books as part of Human Library online. Read their blog about the program.

Despite the isolation, there have been some beautiful exchanges of community during this time.

The Human Library has been a program that we’ve been looking forward to for the last two months. We are a group of people who use non-verbal communication using PODD books with our communication partners. Prior to the online ‘book’ borrowing, it wasn’t possible for us to join these books due to time of public transport or cost of maxi-taxis or needing to organise a support worker for a 30 minute session.

It was such a valuable experience for nearly everyone involved.

"I like it because it gave me something different to do and I would like to continue it after isolation because there is a lot of variety. I felt amazing hearing what they had to say. A great and unique experience but I would rather do it in person. I like learning about the way people live. I feel I am open and tolerant of different people with the way they live their lives and the things they do," Lochlain said.

Jacob’s feedback was: "I felt lucky to experience this and it is one of the best things I’ve done because it was different. I thought the Zoom experience was funny and a little strange but I liked it."

Tom agreed that it was good to do something different, "...but I don’t want to continue because I have been doing sports interviews and I look forward to going back to my sport. I would also prefer to do it in person."

As a reader and a therapist, this has been such an amazing experience where it is really tricky to find events that allow people to share their stories using Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) that is also interesting to adults.

We find there are so many resources for young children but finding something where a group of friends can get together, discuss and share experiences with other people in the community is a rare gem. We hope that this continues online so that we can keep up with these interesting discussions.

Written by Jacob Edwards, Lochlain Harrod, Tom Hamilton and Emily Sharp from Conductive Education Queensland.

Next Human Library online:

24 June

Bookings