Participants Needed – Unzip Our Voices
Unzip Our Voices: Exploring Diversity in Communication at Monash
Do you ever feel that your voice is zipped up and there’s no way to express yourself at the right time or in the right way?
At the Monash Assistive Technology and Society (MATS) Centre, we are doing interdisciplinary research for and with university students in Australia who are at risk of marginalisation and exclusion because they communicate differently. These differences may arise from disabilities, neurodiversity, and native languages/cultures.
In such situations, information can be exchanged without or alongside speech via augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). You might not be familiar with this term, but you may already be using various forms of AAC even if your tutor/supervisor isn’t aware of it!
Conventionally, AAC includes systems, approaches and practices like Auslan, communication boards, whiteboards, text-to-voice engines, email/texting, and subtitling.
More broadly, for multilingual/international students, it may just involve using everyday mobile apps like Google Translate, Otter.ai, or ChatGPT so you can understand better in English.
You Are Invited to Participate in Our Survey
We need your help to understand what kind of AAC you regularly use to address your communication needs at Monash, how you feel about using it, and what you think can be done to make Monash a more inclusive place through AAC.
To work towards this goal, we are inviting you to participate in a 15 to 30-minute online survey.
In return, you will gain a renewed sense of purpose – something greater than your past exams – because you know how your experience, when heard by the right people, could help redefine inclusion in academia.
Join us in unzipping our diverse voices together, along with our pride (or frustration) in being different!
- Please note this is part of my PhD research project. If you are interested and leave your email address in the survey, I may contact you for further collaboration.
- If you have any further questions or need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact me on jing.hu@monash.edu.