A guest post from Speech Language Pathologist, Linda Hollingsworth dip. RCSLT., M.Ed., CCC-SLP

“This student talks so they don’t need access to AAC” is a common myth. AAC is an acronym that stands for Augmentative/Alternative Communication. The term Alternative Communication means to express yourself in a way other than verbal speech. Augmentative Communication means to express yourself in any way in addition to verbal speech. This means that students who speak can use AAC to support their overall system of expression. 

One particular example of a student using AAC to augment speech lives here in Loudoun County. Her inability to accurately produce speech sounds, despite years of intensive therapy, can make her verbal speech difficult to understand, especially to those who are unfamiliar with her speech patterns. Beyond speech production, this student also demonstrated difficulty accurately using grammatical rules and all the subtle intricacies of language (even though she understands them!) to consistently create a message that would be universally understood by her communication partners. 

Things changed for the student when her team of teachers, administrators, related service providers, including her speech-language pathologist, and parents with support from the Specialized Instructional Facilitator – Assistive Technology, collaboratively and consistently implemented an augmentative tool.

In little over a year after implementation, she progressed from producing mostly single, disconnected words that were difficult to understand, to short, well-formed multi-word utterances. Whilst her transformative language has largely been in English, she has also improved her ability to formulate Spanish phrases at home with the help of her bilingual augmentative communication device. 

Although the tool was originally implemented to supplement situations where verbal speech was not working to successfully convey her message, use of AAC has also helped her expand her understanding and use of more complex language. She has progressed from expressing her basic wants and needs using simple sentences such as, “I want…” or “All done” to working towards goals to formulate grammatically complex question forms, such as, “May I…..?” In addition, she has added the use of descriptors such as adverbs (probably, likely, maybe, except etc) to her vocabulary. Thanks to her robust augmentative communication device and team collaboration, these goals are supported through the use of a tool that provides a consistent way to organize, locate, and visualize language. Having access to AAC,  allows her to express her knowledge and understanding of both academic and social language in a way that verbal speech alone would never allow her to do before.

The student now actively participates in class discussions, initiates conversations with peers and adults, and independently seeks out her AAC to support her expression in all environments. Beyond the language improvements, the student has begun to mentor other users of augmentative/alternative communication. She models the use of AAC to her peers and helps them learn how to use their own AAC to formulate their own messages.  In this way, her educational team, which includes her parents, has provided her with the means and support to make meaningful contributions to the world!