Definitely felt like an “I volunteer as Tribute” moment. I love when authors give you an emotional connection to their story this early on. When Hunger connected the dots and figured out what this boy was trying to say, I was cheering for him, for his mom, and for Hunger. After several weeks trying to understand what this 9-year-old boy on the autism spectrum was trying to say, Hunger’s frustration and his at this situation was palpable.

Hunger was working with a speech language client who kept using a particular word on his communication device. The book begins with a story that effectively illustrates the philosophy of presuming competence: the idea that everyone can learn and everyone has something to say. Emotional opening captures your attention Please see my Affiliate Link Disclosure policy for more details. This post may contain affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission if you click through and purchase something. Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow and Custom House for providing me with an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The mixture of memoir and how-to guide strikes an effective balance for this dog mom. While Hunger has posted videos to her website Hunger for Words that show Stella in action, this book comprehensively documents how Hunger applied her knowledge of AAC to teaching her dog to recognize key words on recordable buttons she could push with her paw. In How Stella Learned to Talk, Stella’s mom, speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger, describes how she pioneered the use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices to communicate with Stella. If you’re a dog lover on Instagram or TikTok, then you’ve probably seen videos of some Insta-famous dogs pushing buttons that play recorded words to talk to their humans.

How stella learned to talk