• Central Goals of AAC
o Provide individuals with the opportunity and capability to:
o Communicate messages to interact in conversations
o Participate in communication at home, school, work, & recreational activities
o Learn native language
o Establish and maintain social roles
o Meet personal needs
o Guide their personal/medical care
• Message Management (Form, Store, Retrieve)
o Includes the formulation, storage, or retrieval of single words, codes, and messages to support face-to-face, written, and social media communication
• Message Types (System)
o Letter-by-letter spelling strategy o Individual words o Full or partial messages • Pre-stored vs personal • Pros and cons OR abilities/features matching
• Influencing Factors on Message Selection
o The actual person! o Physical abilities o Desired output (Spoken/Written) o Age o Gender o Social role o Medical conditions o Environment (school/home/work) o Individual preferences/interests o Experiences o Changes in technology
- All of these are important.
- You need a bunch of information upfront before making decisions.
- WHY do I need to consider each
• Messages of Conversation (Uses)
o Greetings o Small talk o Narration o Procedural descriptions o Content-specific (not scripted, informational give and take) o Wrap-up remarks and farewell • Which competence relates to this topic: Social Competence • Look in book for details/examples
• Vocabulary Needs (Literacy)
o Preliterate
• Coverage Vocabulary - Essential messages
• e.g. I’m hungry, I’m thirsty
• Developmental Vocabulary - To develop language skills
• Vocabulary for specific events (going to the aquarium)
o Nonliterate
• Functional
o Literate
• Depends on the need, includes variety
• Have the most options (can do spelling, words, whole messages, etc)
• Additional Considerations
o Timing enhancement
- “I need you to wait while I use my device” – if the person can’t say what they want to say right away, often it is useless.
- They need to be able to say what they want to say- when they want to say it
• Additional Considerations
o Message acceleration
• Words/phrases often used and also lengthy phrases
• Additional Considerations
o Fatigue reduction
- Client may use finger, or head, or eyes
* Head with a switch can be fatiguing- make words in chunks, whole messages to reduce fatigue from head movement
• Additional Considerations
o Social media
- Medicaid and Medicare Center
- Medicaid will buy speech generating devices for people under the age of 21
- Medicare will “buy” speech generating devices also, but they will only rent it out for 13 months and you have to pay a part of it- using it in your home (assisted living or hospital they take it back)- and they don’t want you to do anything else with that device but face-to-face communication (no internet access, no social media for quality of life and social interaction)
- Satillo device is the only one with no internet access
- ALS- biggest population that intellectually they are normal functioning but cannot communicate and want internet and to access social media-
o Core Vocabulary
- Foundational
* Research- most commonly used words by people (words on the LAMP app)
o Fringe Vocabulary
• Words that are specific to the person using the device- including proper nouns
• Vocabulary Maintenance
o Commonly used
• Easiest to access
o Used less frequently
• Maybe you need to take it off
o Worry more about where you put the vocabulary, rather than the vocabulary that is on there.
• Organization of vocabulary in case they every do want to use those words
o P. 33 – questionnaires you can use with parents to determine vocabulary to put on the device
