Traditionally, social communication in Speech and Language Pathology (SLP) is conceptualised based on Western models of linguistic competence. How do SLP as a rehabilitation field reconcile with the idea that all communication are inherently social and colonial ideologies and ableism are concealed within the construction of social communication and its benchmarks? In this seminar, we deconstruct social communication, in particular, those communicative practices that are classified as non-normative (e.g., autistic children, children who are labelled as having social communication disorder). Current standardised assessments and mile-stone based understanding of social communication proposes a set of hierarchical benchmarks for children to achieve developmentally. These benchmarks have hidden colonial, raciolinguistic and medicalised ideologies that render linguistic practices of neurodivergent children as deficient. Further, it dichotomises children into ‘normal and disordered’ categories which then results in the production of interventions that approximate children’s communication practices into neurotypical standards. The seminar will critically analyse these issues and the notion of social communication as an individual, linear and cognitive skill. It will illustrate a case study that describes the communicative practices of a neurodivergent child. Critically, the seminar will introduce conversation analysis as a potential resource for speech-language pathologists for reimagining neurodivergent communication practices and to move away from rigid and standardised conceptualisation of it. It will discuss how conversation analysis can be used to recognize social communication as an interactional achievement and to highlight notions of shared ethical responsibility and relationality between communicators. A reframed notion of social communication challenges the assumption of deficits and disorders and emphasizes the co-constructed nature of communication. This has implications for all neurodivergent children, however, particularly for those that are historically marginalised, for example, racialised and/or Indigenous children who are situated at the margins of race, ability, gender and neurodivergence.

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