What Is AAC Intervention and What Should It Include? 

AAC intervention is the process of facilitating functional communication across all communicative contexts. This process takes time, as well as hours of work by the augmented communicator and the team of professionals providing the needed intervention services. Developing functional communication skills involves the use of multi-modal communication strategies. That is, an augmented communicator may learn to communicate using varied approaches including speech, communication boards, signs, gestures and high-tech devices. An important part of an AAC intervention program is to teach the augmented communicator the strategic competence to know when each communication modality or strategy is appropriate. Strategies used with familiar listeners may be very different from strategies needed when communicating in classrooms or with unfamiliar listeners.

A speech-language pathologist knowledgeable in the use of AAC techniques and strategies should direct an intervention program. The ultimate goal of an AAC intervention is to enable the augmented communicator to develop communication skills that are socially and linguistically appropriate to their abilities.

AAC intervention goals may include any of the following:

* Teaching symbol representation skills for objects and pictures Teaching the vocabulary contents of the communication board or device

* Teaching encoding strategies to navigate a device or to access vocabulary stored with a device

* Facilitating language development commensurate with language-comprehension skills

* Teaching phonics and phonemic awareness

* Facilitating literacy skills

* Developing the pragmatic skills needed to ensure effective social communication

* Developing the physical skills to consistently and reliably access a communication device through direct selection or an alternative mode of access (e.g., switch)

The duration and intensity of services will vary with the needs of the individual, but should include both direct and indirect service time. Direct service time is time spent with the augmented communicator addressing communication needs. Indirect time is time the speech-language pathologist dedicates to designing, fabricating and upgrading the AAC system.

Prerequisites for AAC Intervention

There are no prerequisites to initiate an AAC intervention program. All individuals have the right to intervention directed towards developing functional communication skills. There are prerequisites skills an augmented communicator should demonstrate before he/she is given access to a sophisticated AAC device. Initial intervention strategies may include teaching object recognition and developing choice-making skills. Gestures and signs may be introduced when indicated. As symbolic skills improve, intervention activities will often focus around use of symbols to express simple and complex messages.

Language Intervention

The most important component of an AAC intervention program is developing the expressive language performance of an augmented communicator. Though an individual understands language, it does not necessarily mean that individual knows how to use symbols to form messages of varying syntactic complexity. Quite often, these skills must be taught. To become an effective communicator, an individual must not only be able to select a single key to express a message, the augmented communicator must learn to combine symbols to express unique messages.

Language therapy for an augmented communicator should not be radically different from language intervention with an individual who demonstrates an expressive-language delay or disorder. The goals, and many of the activities of the language-intervention program, are essentially the same. What differs is the tool (i.e., the AAC device) used for communication. The augmented communicator must learn to use his/her “tool” to create sentences, expand the syntactic complexity of his/her messages, express a range of communicative functions and develop age-appropriate pragmatic skills.

Language intervention can and should include training in the use of communication boards, as well as high-tech devices. Intervention should also teach the augmented communicator the strategic competence to know when to use his other modes of communication (e.g., speech, signs or gestures).

Device Training

Device training includes teaching the operation of a device. It entails teaching the features to operate the device such as “clear display,” “print” and “speak message.” It also involves teaching the encoding strategies needed to navigate the device or to express the vocabulary contained within the device.