Episode 244: Hank Poore: AAC User, AAC Ambassador, and Foundation Director

his week, we have the privilege of interviewing Hank Poore, an AAC user and Tobi Dynavox ambassador who has his own foundation, hankpoorefoundation.org. Hank shares about becoming a proficient AAC communicator, the AAC journey Hank took to come to his current eye gaze system, advice for looking for a job as an AAC user, work Hank does with his foundation, and more! 

Before the interview, Rachel and Chris discuss a breakthrough that Rachel had with one of her coaching clients. Her client’s Mom and Dad have been sending in videos of them working with their child, after which they watch the videos with Rachel and talk through how they can become more effective communication partners. Recently, when watching a video of a session, they noticed how anxious the AAC user was getting when asked a question that he doesn’t know the answer to. The family discussed with Rachel how they can switch from questions that have a “right” and “wrong” answer to questions that are more open ended to help their child feel less anxiety when asked a question. The family would never have noticed if it wasn’t recorded, so in this case, video was an excellent resource. 

Key ideas this week:

🔑 There is evidence to suggest that people with disabilities are asked more questions than people without disabilities - make sure that you are not turning a communication exchange into an interrogation. 

🔑 When we are selecting an AAC device for a user, sometimes we can get caught up in picking the one “best” tool. We shouldn’t focus exclusively on selecting the one tool or the primary tool that they will use - in some cases, like Hank’s, it may be that a combination of tools will be successful for a user.

🔑 Technology is changing and growing at such a fast rate, in some cases a tool that didn’t work years ago may have been improved. For Hank, he tried eye gaze years ago, but it was too difficult to use. However, when he tried it again more recently,  the technology had improved and it was much more effective for him.