Perspectives

Last month, CommunicationFIRST responded to the White House Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Request for Information about how to make the US government’s policies and work more equitable.  Our comments include 12 recommendations.  The first three recommendations ask the government to begin counting people with speech-related disabilities, like it…

CommunicationFIRST is pleased to announce it has joined other civil and disability rights groups in filing a brief led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Britney Spears’ conservatorship case. The amicus curiae (or “friend of the court”) brief urges the judge presiding over Ms. Spears’ conservatorship to allow…

Guardianships and conservatorships are legal tools that are frequently used in the name of protecting people who rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) instead of speech to be heard and understood. Britney Spears’ recent advocacy to end her conservatorship has brought to the public’s attention the downsides of conservatorships…

Silence can impact all of us: our relationships, learning, and employment. Yet being placed in a setting of forced silence or being denied access to communication has the harshest consequences for those of us unable to speak in a way that is intelligible to others. That is why it’s crucial…

“Why are you using a male voice?” I’m sitting in the car next to a professor who is giving me a ride back to campus. I’m not sure what to type. The first question is, why am I using any voice? I normally prefer to have people read what I…

It was 3:30 in the afternoon when I entered a SuperCuts near my university in Washington, DC, for what the second time in as many weeks. I would always go to the hair salon before an interview, and at the height of my search for a summer internship after my…