"Being able to effectively communicate with all of your patients is very important."
For many years I wanted to make a presentation for nurses and others working in medical professions to talk about how frustrating and frightening it can be for their patients who have communication limitations.
In 2024, I shared a lecture I was developing to nursing students at several Nursing Schools and the responses from the professors and students were very positive and encouraging. I now am presenting my lecture in person at Nursing Schools in the metropolitan New York and Tri-State areas.
Nurses spend much of their time interacting with patients where they need to be effective and comfortable communicators. They also need to be prepared to engage with patients who communicate in different ways.
During my in-person lecture, nursing students are given the opportunity to directly interact with someone who is non-speaking and uses Alternative and Augmentative Communication, or AAC.
My lecture gives nursing students an opportunity to understand how important it is to be an effective communicator to all of their patients, and especially to their patients who communicate differently.
In 2025, The American Speech, Language and Hearing Association, ASHA published guidelines to help medical professionals encountering patients with communication needs.
