In this blog, Fraser Somerville talks about his journey towards driving his powerchair independently using head switches.

From the age of six I got my first wheelchair which was a manual chair called Chunc. I was getting pushed around all my childhood and I didn’t particularly like it because it had an impact on my independence.

At the age of 15 I got my first powerchair which I named Derrick. I controlled my power chair using a joystick on a tray. This didn’t work well for me because I have a tendency to swipe my arms due to my involuntary movements and it was hard for me to get a good grip on the joystick. Everything came to a halt because of Covid being in the way.

In 2022 I had a referral to see if there was another method I could use for driving my power chair. My bioengineer suggested I use head switching and I was really up for trialing it out.

A couple of months later my powerchair journey started all over again but this time my head was doing the driving. I was really getting on well with the head switches but they were clicking all the time when I was eating or drinking or doing an activity. I looked into head arrays which has three separate bits of the headrest and the headrest was a lot softer to lay my head on.

The day had finally arrived when the headset was put on to my wheelchair. I absolutely loved it, I was getting on really well with it until one day the right driving pad decided to break and it started to drive on its own which was really scary because I had no control over where the chair was going. Oh no. Alarm bells started to ring and I had a feeling this product wasn’t compatible with my involuntary movements.

Fast forward three headrests later I decided to revert back to my original clicky switches as I had lost the trust of the head arrays. I felt more comfortable. However, that was short lived as on holiday the power chair went back to its old ways of not stopping when I wanted it to.

Now I feel like history is repeating itself as I have had to replace several forward switches due to my strength and my involuntary movements. I’ve now gained a fourth switch which I can access via my chin, this is my emergency stop as I felt it was necessary for when the chair decides to do it’s own thing.

After having several meetings with my bioengineer, we have decided to part ways on the existing buttons and replace them with enclosed proximity switches which I hope helps my situation going forward. I will keep you all posted on my progress.

Hi, my name is Fraser Somerville,  I’m 21, I’m from Glasgow, I have Athetoid Cerebral Palsy and I am the founder of the Glasgow AAC Group.

Why I started the Glasgow AAC Group

My reasonings behind starting an AAC group is because I don’t come across many people who use some form of AAC. Another reason is I was attending the Straight Talking group in Dundee and I really enjoyed it. However, it was getting a bit too much for me because I had to travel two hours there and two hours back.

Setting up the AAC Group

In order for me to start this AAC group I had to contact SCTCI who is the communication aid team for Scotland. I got in touch with them as they have the knowledge of who uses AAC across Glasgow. From there I had to secure a venue, I reached out to Tesco at Silverburn to see if I could use their community hub but unfortunately it didn’t work out as there was barriers I had to overcome before securing the room.

Then I had a light bulb moment to contact the founder of Include Me 2, Paul Mcilvenny, I explained I wanted to start my own AAC group and I asked him did he have anywhere that was available. I was delighted when he said I could use their building at Cardonald which is called The Hub.

I made up a flyer using Canva – luckily I had some experiences from past courses I have attended. Included in the flyer was that it is an adult only group and it runs every fourth Thursday, the reason being is that I wanted to interact with people who are on my wavelength and I could relate to. This flyer got sent to the SCTCI team and they displayed it in their office. A few days after this, I was emailed by a few people who said they were interested in joining the AAC group and I was overjoyed by this.

The first session

The day had finally arrived after a lot of organising, I was very nervous in case nobody showed up but luckily three other AAC users came. We sat round the table and got to know one and other. At the end of the session we played a game called two truths and a lie which was real fun. It was very refreshing to interact with people who use a communication aid like myself. My aim for this group is to gain friendships and be involved in the community to give the public an insight on how to communicate with users of different types of AAC.

Interested? Join in!

The Glasgow AAC User Group is for adults only and runs on the last Thursday of every month between 1.30-3.30pm at the Cardonald Hub, 25 Lammermoor Avenue, Glasgow, G52 3BE.

If anyone is interested in joining this AAC group, please contact Fraser via email: aacgroupglasgow@outlook.com