An overview of Ivan's communication resources
Like many other people not using oral speech, Ivan lives in a situation of bilinguality: he uses one language for comprehension (Russian) and other ways of communcation for expresing himself : from eye-pointing at different objects around and his mother's body and facial expressions to emojis, words and phrases typed through the eyetracker on the computer !
Ivan and Anastasia are doing English exercises together at the computer. The screengrab in the corner of the image shows a picture of a boy and a phrase “He has got green eyes”, something both of them see on the screen. Ivan uses this phrase to talk with his mother about the eye color of different members of their family, such as his own, his mother's, his brother's, and his granny's.
Ivan understands spoken Russian (importantly, he is NOT deaf - a popular stereotype about all people with communication disabilities). For example, he converses with his mother, his school teacher, myself, and he watches cartoons, TV shows, YouTube videos in Russian. At the same time, he uses embodied visible actions for speaking - a language shared in full only by one communication partner, his mother, but learnable and learnt by other people.
1. Establishing Attention
Another thing about Ivan’s language is that it is fully visual. While language is often associated with oral speech, there are many languages in the world which are visual. Think of American, Russian, or Nicaraguan sign languages. Or International Sign used by deaf people around the world when they come together to communicate. Although Ivan is not deaf, his language is visual too! It needs to be seen, rather than listened to, so if you want to catch this guy’s jokes, you’d better keep an eye out!
In practical terms, this means that Ivan needs his communication partner to look at him, so that they can see what he's going to say. In conversations with his mother, the first step is to attract her attention - either through looking at her with a specific "seeking" facial expression, or through slightly bouncing in chair if she is busy and doesn't look at him.
Ivan and Anastasia sit at the laptop side by side. Ivan looks intently at Anastasia to make sure he has her attention before asking for her assistance.
2. Eye-pointing
Once Ivan has his mother's attention, he usually proceeds with what he wanted to say - for example, he may look at the water bottle to ask his mom for a drink, or make a comment about the washing machine being too loud, or talk about the new version of his favorite video-game.
To say all of these, Ivan points at things in the apartment with his eyes and head, he also may just open a game or look at the game's icon on his computer to make it the topic of their conversation.
In this gif, Anastasia is looking at Ivan while he is pointing at the wall with his gaze and head. This way Ivan refers to his brother who at this moment stays in the adjacent room, right behind this wall.
In this gif, Anastasia comes close to Ivan to move his chair closer to the desk. At this point, Ivan eye-points at the camera to comment on the situation that they are being video-recorded.
3. The art of suggesting alternatives
Now, once Ivan shows what he wants to talk about, it is now on Anastasia and her skills to to co-construct what her son is up to. Usually, Anastasia provides a list of options that Ivan can choose from - something like a guessing game.
This is how Anastasia talks about this strategy both have been using since Ivan was little:
“When he was around 3 years old, he would only use "Yes/ No", or if he wanted something, he would make me bring him to this thing, so that he can point at it: a potty, a toy, to drink. For instance, he would bring him to the fridge, so that he could choose what to eat.
Now [at the age of 8] he knows a lot of things, so I don't need to bring him to the fridge, but rather can ask him, "Do you want meat, fish, or a dessert?" And then start from there. If he chooses dessert, then I can give him more options, like marshmallow, zephyr, things like that. And then he would stop me at something that he wants.” (October 2020)
4a. "No" (disagreeing) homesign
Once Anastasia provides Ivan with some options he can choose from, he has concrete alternatives that he can either reject or accept. To reject what his mother just suggested, Ivan can shake his head like in the gif below, or simply wait for the correct candidate while holding his eye-pointing gesture (at the camera, water bottle, a wall, etc.).
This gif shows how Ivan rejects a candidate from a list of options suggested by his mother. In this case, after Ivan asked for her assistance with opening a website, Anastasia suggested several options of websites to choose from. The first option his mother suggested is not the one that Ivan wants to engage with, so he shakes his head, explicitly rejecting it.
4b. "Yes" (agreeing) homesign
Instead, when Anastasia reaches the candidate on her list that Ivan was aiming for, he can accept it. To agree to an option from a list, Ivan rises and slightly bounces in a chair after the desired option was voiced, like in a gif below. Sometimes, he can also shift his gaze (moving to the next topic), look back at Anastasia, or smile - all of which also work as Ivan's agreeing gestures.