Introducing Alternative and Augmentative Communication

by Dora Raymaker · 2009-01-13 10:34:00 UTC
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fingers over a keyboard, poised to typeI read Technology Helps Autistic Kids Communicate on First Coast News. The epic language ("despair...until now!" *cue drums*) aside, this article was a relief to me after pages and pages and days and pages of the same old news on either the California study, prenatal testing, or celebrity death. It's an article on one of my favorite topics--Alternative and Augmentative Communication, or AAC.

Like everyone, I have biases. I'm not a neutral news reporter in this space; I'm expected to be a commentator on the news with my biases in place. And one of those biases (so you can take me here with proper "salt") is that I am a huge supporter of AAC. This is because AAC has been a critical to my ability to, well, do much of anything.

Back to the article. Is AAC shiny and new? No, not at all. Is it important to hear your own voice through a speech device? Maybe for some, but personally I could care less. Is an AAC system a $3000 speech device? No, an AAC system is an integrated set of many parts of which a device is only one part, and the device does not have to be the $3000 model, and an AAC system may not even include a device. Will all people on the spectrum who have difficulty with spoken communication benefit from a speech device? No, probably not, but some will. Can AAC lead to a "communication explosion" as Dr. Travers the pediatrician quoted in the article puts it? Hell yes! (At least it did for me--see bias.)

I really like that the article introduces the idea of speech synthesizers for people on the spectrum, and has such a positive message about AAC. Getting creative about communication is so very important. But the article is also an oversimplification of the fantastically rich world of communication-without-speech, a world that encompasses everything from devices to entire languages to even topics regarding culture.

I'll return to this topic of AAC again (especially as I'm preparing a presentation on communication making the topic very sticky in my head), so I will restrain myself from writing the dissertation that wants to come out every time I get going on AAC. For now, here is some more well-rounded introductory material than the news article: wikipedia's short, accessible summary, and the International Society for Augmentative & Alternative Communication (ISAAC)'s more in depth information.

Dora Raymaker
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