They could use an adapted form of German Sign Language (video of someone using adapted ASL without hands or feet), perhaps using semaphore instead of fingerspelling or something, perhaps with the movement of the Adam’s apple partly filling in for the mouthing (I dunno), and probably with a special interpreter present. They’d also be able to communicate in Morse code with a series of mmmm’s or blinks or any other bodily movement that can be a binary. There are also keyboards specially made for people without hands or without the use of their fingers, and even with a “normal” keyboard it’s not super hard at all to learn to type with the tip of one’s nose, or using a pencil or chopstick or whatever else affixed to oneself, nor is it too difficult to use pen or pencil or fudepen without the use of one’s fingers. There are also a number of constructed or whistled languages that distinguish sounds only by pitch and phonation (and I guess for that matter whether a sound is egressive) — Hell, Kelly Rogers was born without a tongue but nevertheless learned how to speak, so at this point it would not surprise me if someone somehow managed to learn how to speak clearly without a tongue and with the lips sewn shut.
Otherwise, well, there’s myoelectric devices and eye tracking like Stephen Hawking used, there’s all sorts of things both low tech and high tech that can be used in AAC. Cutting out someone’s tongue, sewing that person’s lips shut, and breaking thons fingers, I’m sorry to say would probably not even remotely prevent that person from communicating, it really just makes communication more tedious.
…I may or may not have spent a perhaps concerning amount of time thinking about how I myself might communicate if I were disabled in the exact way described.
They could use an adapted form of German Sign Language (video of someone using adapted ASL without hands or feet), perhaps using semaphore instead of fingerspelling or something, perhaps with the movement of the Adam’s apple partly filling in for the mouthing (I dunno), and probably with a special interpreter present. They’d also be able to communicate in Morse code with a series of mmmm’s or blinks or any other bodily movement that can be a binary. There are also keyboards specially made for people without hands or without the use of their fingers, and even with a “normal” keyboard it’s not super hard at all to learn to type with the tip of one’s nose, or using a pencil or chopstick or whatever else affixed to oneself, nor is it too difficult to use pen or pencil or fudepen without the use of one’s fingers. There are also a number of constructed or whistled languages that distinguish sounds only by pitch and phonation (and I guess for that matter whether a sound is egressive) — Hell, Kelly Rogers was born without a tongue but nevertheless learned how to speak, so at this point it would not surprise me if someone somehow managed to learn how to speak clearly without a tongue and with the lips sewn shut.
Otherwise, well, there’s myoelectric devices and eye tracking like Stephen Hawking used, there’s all sorts of things both low tech and high tech that can be used in AAC. Cutting out someone’s tongue, sewing that person’s lips shut, and breaking thons fingers, I’m sorry to say would probably not even remotely prevent that person from communicating, it really just makes communication more tedious.
…I may or may not have spent a perhaps concerning amount of time thinking about how I myself might communicate if I were disabled in the exact way described.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2: