The Happy Pod: My tattoo is his voice

**Holly Gibbs** (0:00)
This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.

**Jessica Fletcher** (0:09)
I'm Holly Gibbs, and in this edition, we've always had a deep bond, but now with this tattoo, it almost feels magical. And it's just the most incredible feeling in the world.

**Holly Gibbs** (0:19)
How one mother's tattoo has opened up a new world of communication for her son. Also on this podcast, the regatta, where all the participants are breast cancer survivors.

**Maria Fleming** (0:30)
We joke all the time that we're all in the same boat, literally. We have differences across everything else, and then there's this one major thing that binds us all.

**Holly Gibbs** (0:40)
Plus the nursery, which operates inside a retirement home, and a world first.

**Hanny Marcus** (0:46)
The AI acted as a sort of co-partner to assistant adjacent to the primary screen, identifying the structures that we care most about.

**Holly Gibbs** (0:54)
How AI was used to help successfully remove a tumour near the brain.
A mother in Canada has come up with a unique way to communicate with her autistic child. Jessica Fletcher has a keyboard tattooed on her forearm, which her non-speaking son Hunter uses to talk to her. She posted it online in a video which has been viewed millions of times, and has even inspired other parents to get the same design. I caught up with Jessica.

**Jessica Fletcher** (1:28)
My son Hunter, he's 11 years old, and he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was three. At a very young age, he started communicating with a system called PECS, and that's where he would just get pictures and bring them to me, and that turned into him using an AAC device, which is an iPad with symbols, and it speaks for him, and he's just the light of my life. He is the most beautiful thing about my life.

**Holly Gibbs** (1:55)
Can you describe your tattoo?

**Jessica Fletcher** (1:57)
Yeah. My tattoo is just a basic keyboard layout. There's no punctuation or no numbers, but there is a space bar. There is a yes and a no button. There's also an I love you button, and there is a happy face and a sad face. It's on my left forearm because it's easier for him to reach and easier for me to read. It's so funny because I have to look at it closely to tell what he's reading, but he can type on it if he's standing to my left and it's upside down to him.

**Holly Gibbs** (2:25)
Where did the idea come from?

**Jessica Fletcher** (2:27)
Hunter loves to swim. That's his main hobby.
He has always struggled with not being able to communicate in the water because he can't take his device in the water. I've made communication boards that were waterproof. It wasn't convenient and it wasn't accessible enough. I've always been trying to come up with a new way. One day, we went to a restaurant and his device died. I started writing the alphabet because at school, one of his teachers has an alphabet board up and I've seen him finger spell on it. Well, Hunter got mad at me, flipped the paper over and started writing the keyboard layout. That's because he's learned to type on a keyboard because he likes to Google things to show me what he wants. So that was kind of the aha moment and I was like, okay, a keyboard, that's clearly his favorite way to communicate. And then I thought, how can I make this so we'd never forget it at home, so it's waterproof and the battery doesn't die. And then that's where the idea of a tattoo came.

**Holly Gibbs** (3:25)
And how has it helped, Hunter?

**Jessica Fletcher** (3:27)
It's helped tremendously. A lot of kids with autism struggle with physical touch and this has kind of taught Hunter what safe touch means. So now I'm getting a lot more affection, a lot more hugs. He says, I love you a lot more often. It's also given him the ability to speak to me privately because when he uses the device, the whole room hears what he's saying.

**Holly Gibbs** (3:47)
Do you have a favourite memory of him using it?

**Jessica Fletcher** (3:51)
Definitely the first day I got it, he grabbed my arm and he made such direct eye contact, which he does when he sees something that's visually stimulating to him. And he wrote mama on my arm. Later that night, a couple hours later, I think he really had time to process and he realised that it was permanent and it was all for him. And he said, I love you mama on it.

**Holly Gibbs** (4:13)