Graphic Facilitation
I enjoyed a webinar this afternoon with Christina Merkley, Shift-It-Coach, a “visual-thinking expert” on uses of graphics for different situations. In my work with people with aphasia, I started to learn how to communicate with pictures and drawings. I had never fully understood the power of graphics until I learned that my clients could tell me a lot about their lives, their emotional states, and their activities by using a pencil and paper.
I am going to start using more graphics in meetings and start to work on increasing my comfort with drawing. When I’m ready, I’m going to take one of her courses. For people with aphasia, the graphics person will need to be skilled in understanding. This is where a skilled communication partner comes into play. When you watch her videos and her great work, she is acting as a translator – speech to graphics/words. In aphasia groups that I have facilitated, we did a combination of techniques, words, gestures, and drawings. Even though people laughed at my stick figures, I gradually got better at communicating concepts in graphics.
I’m looking forward to doing more of it.
