Prepared for Life

One of the unique things about being an AAC Specialist is that I get to work with students from ages 3-22. So from the very start, I always have my eye on the end goal. When kids graduate from school, what is it that we hope they’ll be able to do?

At the transition level (ages 18-22), it becomes even more important that students learn self-advocacy, and get to experience increasing agency and autonomy. They should be making choices about the kinds of activities they want to engage in and topics they want to learn. 

It’s also important that we start to introduce young adult students to adult life. What are the self-care needs that they will have? What job or career opportunities could they explore? What skills will they need to find, form, and maintain adult relationships? 

I want to draw a through-line here, from the youngest students to the oldest, to illustrate how we can set a child up for successful, autonomous communication. And note - it's not necessarily independent, but autonomous. What’s the difference?

• Independence: is when you are able to do something without any help from others. I don't expect our AAC users to do everything independently. After all, no one is 100% independent, 100% of the time! For instance, I am one of those people who will be watching TV, turn to my husband and go, "Oh look, it's that actor! From that movie! What's-his-face!" and he has to fill in the blanks. I need a little help in that communication interaction, and that's okay. Or as another example - you probably do a lot to care for your own health, but also occasionally get help from a doctor. We always aim to teach kids to do as much as they can for themselves, but the goal does not have to be 100% independence. 

• Autonomy: is when you have the free will to make choices, and no one is forcing you. For our AAC users this means being able to say whatever they want, to whoever they want, whenever they want. It means having many options for words, and meaningful choices about what happens in their lives. We should always have a goal that our students become 100% autonomous in their communication. We're going for authentic and spontaneous, not prompted or imitated. 

Say you have a student who uses partner-assisted scanning. They are not an "independent" communicator because someone has to provide them with a list of choices, and scan through them. But they can have communication autonomy as long as the person scanning makes sure to honor their "yes" and "no" signals. Here's a great clip, just two minutes long, to illustrate this idea... Mom is telling Angela "no you can't have your iPad", yet she's allowing Angela to say, essentially, "But mooooom, I want it!!!". Angela is not an independent communicator, but she is an autonomous communicator who can make meaningful choices of the words she wants to say. 

What we would do at “LUVUSD” –

When a child has complex communication needs, they might not be able to directly point to a device. In those cases, it’s common for teams to say they’re “not ready” and then provide a very limited vocabulary set. Maybe a few talking buttons, a PECS book, a choice board. 

In LUVUSD, my “dream district,” we would know better and do better. Robust communication systems can be made accessible, step-by-step. 

For some students, I’ve put together the following combination of tools: 

• Partner-assisted scanning - a no-tech access method that still supports autonomy for the learner

• PODD books - a really great way to organize full messages with the least amount of selections required

• Indirect access via switches 

Even when a child is not independently communicating, they can still be autonomous in their communication. And that allows us to start teaching life skills early, and ensure that students can participate meaningfully in every activity.

It’s not just a dream - 

There are marvelous SLPs all over the world who have created resources on the topics I’ve touched on here. Though I’ve only skimmed the surface, here are some great places for a deeper dive:

• "Everyone Deserves AAC" - a research article for adult AAC users, by adult AAC users.

• Communication & Literacy in the Secondary Classroom - an AAC in the Cloud presentation by Laura Taylor, demonstrating that it's never too late to start using evidence-based communication and literacy strategies.

• Sexuality and Relationships for Students with Disabilities - a list of resources on this topic collected by the Center for Parent Information and Resources

• Overview of PODD - by Assistiveware

• Resources by Linda Burkhart - covering everything from PODD goals, to partner-assisted scanning, to the stepping stones for switch access.