10 minutes
Working with a device Support a person who uses a communication device without speaking for them, finishing their sentences, or filling their silence.
What you’ll be able to do Describe what a listener does while a person composes on a device, identify three habits that undermine device users, and state the one rule that fixes all three. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the effect? Document a next step for Working with a device: In your next conversation with a device user, count silently to twenty before you speak, every time. The silence is the person talking Composing on a device is slow. A sentence may take a minute, or three, or ten. During that time the listener's instinct is to help: read the words as they appear, guess the rest, finish the sentence, or, if the silence goes on, change the subject to something easier. Each of these takes the person's voice. Reading the words before they are released is reading over their shoulder. Guessing the sentence is putting words in their mouth. Changing the subject is telling them their turn is over.
The rule that fixes all of it is to wait. Look at the person, not the screen. Let them compose. When they play the sentence, that is when it has been said. Then respond to what they said, not to what you guessed.
Habits that take the person's voice Watching the screen Reading words as they are selected, before the person has chosen to release them. The person is drafting; you are reading their draft. Look at their face instead.
Finishing the sentence Guessing after three words and saying the rest. Even when correct, it teaches the person that composing the whole sentence is unnecessary, and they compose less.
Answering for them A question is asked; the worker answers from what they think the person would say. The person has become a topic.
Filling the silence Changing the subject, or moving on, because the silence feels long. The silence is the person talking.
Operating the device Taking the device to select something for the person. Their voice is now in your hands.
Being right about what someone was going to say is not the same as letting them say it. The difference is whose conversation it is.
Set the pace to the device What you can change You control the pace of a conversation. Setting it to the device rather than to your comfort is the whole of the practice.
What to watch for Do not let a meeting agenda force the pace. If the meeting cannot accommodate the person's method, the meeting is the thing to change.
Your next step For your next meeting with a device user, double the time allotted and put their items first.
Carry this forward Composing on a device is slow, and the most common listener failures are guessing ahead, finishing the sentence, answering for the person, and changing the subject during the silence.
The one rule: wait. Look at the person, not the screen. Do not speak until they indicate they are finished.
A device is the person's voice; treating it as a tool the worker operates, or reading over their shoulder, is the equivalent of putting words in their mouth.
An accordion on the habits, a statement, a scenario decision and a knowledge check.
In your next conversation with a device user, count silently to twenty before you speak, every time.
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