How Stella Learned to Talk: Book Review
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How Stella Learned To Talk is the remarkable story of how speech pathologist Christina Hunger taught her dog to talk using an Assisted Augmented Communication Device (buttons).
Author Christina Hunger brought home a heeler x catahoula pup named Stella when she was working as a speech pathologist with non-verbal children, whom she supported to use Assisted Augmented Communication (AAC) Devices to express themselves. It wasn’t long before she was looking at Stella and wondering if she too might be able to communicate with AAC.
As it turned out, she could.
The book walks through the chronological journey Christina went on to teach Stella to communicate using AAC. Stella wouldn’t have the dexterity for a keyboard or tablet, so Christina introduced buttons that played voice recordings of different words.
As an expert in her field, Christina was uniquely positioned to apply her years of experience to a novel, inter-species situation. Christina is believed to be the first person to teach a dog to use buttons to communicate. Since then, AAC with animals has become hugely popular.
What I loved 🧡
I love hearing about inventions that arise from unrelated fields - for example, a theatrical make-up artist’s expertise on preventing skin infections inspired a medical breakthrough in preventing surgery-related infections, or how the technology that distinguishes a Dyson vacuum cleaner was inspired by a sawmill. Christina’s expertise in speech pathology opened up a whole new way of viewing animal learning for pet owners.
Most of the book is written in a narrative style, as the author recounts her experiences teaching Stella to talk, but at the end of each chapter she provides practical takeaways for teaching your own dog, making for a read that was both entertaining and informative.
What I learnt 📚
How incredibly flexible and adaptive a canine’s brain is, and how badly we underestimate an animal’s learning abilities
About language and learning, and how AAC opens up whole worlds for those who are otherwise unable to express themselves in this neurotypical world.
The relationship between language (communication) and the body (motor skills and memory) in humans and dogs.
What I longed for 🤔
I would have loved more in-depth descriptions of how to teach your dogs to express emotions such as mad, sad, happy.
Borrow or buy?
Buy. There are a lot of valuable tips on how to support your pet to talk using assistive technology, so it's a handy book to available to refer to.
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This was a fascinating and educational book, detailing one woman’s innovative relationship with and belief in the capabilities of her dog. May it motivate you to stay curious, and to communicate better with your furry or feathered friends.
This book was the thing that tipped the scales for me when it came to using buttons with Mango, and upon finishing it I ordered some FluentPet buttons to get us started..