#TalkingAAC 2025

Clinicians often find that successful use of AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) in schools involves more than evaluating and acquiring a device. Successful implementation requires a detailed analysis of how best to meet a student’s communication needs in various settings, while still honoring the student’s multimodal communication efforts. An implementation plan can greatly facilitate this process.

This session will offer teachers and SLPs an example of creating a comprehensive communication implementation plan. This plan, which has been piloted and revised over five years, was created to ensure that all steps, strategies, actions, and resources for successful AAC outcomes are documented and acknowledged across communication partners and settings. The form is based on current research and clinical best practices and weaves together concepts from Joy Zabala’s SETT Framework, The Lippitt-Knoster Model for Managing Complex Change, The Participation Model (Beukelman and Mirenda), and the Zone of Proximal Development. It also encourages evidenced-based practices including: Aided Language Stimulation, Communication Competencies (Janice Light), communication partner training, functions of communication (Janice Light), robust communication tools, core vocabulary, Descriptive Teaching Method (Gail Van Tatenhove), and debunking AAC Myths. Most importantly, this plan incorporates personal preferences and insights from the AAC user and familiar communication partners. This presentation will offer several case studies demonstrating how the thoughtful construction of an implementation plan can encourage evidence-based practices and support teams in identifying the routines needed to implement the AAC tool with success.

Digital assistants can be integrated into weekly speech therapy sessions to teach clients that they are a portal to information that can be accessed at any point through a series of steps. The steps to access digital assistancs vary depending on the user's communication strengths (i.e., using their voice, using direct-selections on an iPad, and/or using their eyes to activate buttons on an iPad through infrared technology). Clients and their families learn to build trust in the technology by using skills learned in therapy for generalization into the home using the same portal.

The perception of digital assistants could be a privacy concern because they have a recording feature, but it can be turned off in a simple procedure where you choose not to save voice recording and opt out of voice recording. For example, to ensure that client and staff privacy are at the forefront of decision making, the following features need to be enabled on Alexa:
Go to Alexa App>Alexa Privacy> Manage your Alexa Data> Don’t Save Recordings
Go to Alexa App>Alexa Privacy>Manage your Alexa Data>Help Improve Alexa>Uncheck “Use of Voice Recordings”

Through the use of digital assistants, clients can learn independence and autonomy in the areas of communication, environmental access, medical support, and/or socialization.

Communication independence and autonomy can look like asking “What’s the date?”, “What is the Day of the week?”, “What is the time?”, “What is the weather?”, “When is the holiday?”.
Environmental independence and autonomy can look like using digital assistants to turn the lights off/on, turn on the TV, open/close doors, run the vacuum, and/or start the laundry.
Medical independence and autonomy can look like asking digital assistants to remind me to take my medicine, ask when a doctor’s appointment occurs, set a wake-up, set a timer, and/or make a to-do list.
Socialization independence and autonomy can look like digital assistants dropping-in on a family or friend, telling a joke, telling the news, playing a game, listening to music, and participating in cooking with recipes.

In addition,digital assistants features can be taught to promote clients’ independent knowledge seeking (Alexa read me a book, Alexa spell____), dual language capabilities (Translation from English to Spanish), and for adaptive listening mode (Recognize different speech patterns like stuttering and gives more time to finish speaking).

Digital assistants are an influential therapy tool that can be used as a portal to access information independently for all communicators.

This session explores the challenges AAC users face in finding, building, and maintaining intimate relationships. It is very easy to become hyperfocused on the technology, vocabulary, and other minutiae of AAC. Everyone supporting an AAC user needs to take a step back and remember the purpose of AAC is to form relationships. It is very important not to neglect relationship goals that AAC users might have. It is also important to remember that AAC users have the same emotional needs as everybody else, and we all need to help support them so they can participate in the fullest possible range of human experiences. To that end, participants will leave the session being more mindful of the importance of supporting their clients’ development of communicative competence.

A discussion of communicative competence will be at the beginning of the session as it is the foundation for building any type of relationship. It is composed of three constructs: functionality of communication, adequacy of communication, and sufficiency of knowledge, judgment, and skill. In addition, there are psychosocial factors such as motivation, attitude, confidence, and resilience. The presentation will explore these areas.
There are many possible reasons an AAC user could find it challenging to form intimate relationships. There can be physical, developmental, or cognitive differences on top of the communication differences, and the presenter will explore some of these potential challenges. These challenges may include:
• Pragmatic and receptive language challenges
• There is often uncertainty around when and how to disclose a disability before or during the first date.
• Understanding safe sexual practices and consent
• For individuals needing a personal care attendant, it can be a challenge to get privacy with a potential partner and to negotiate boundaries with a PCA
• Social Security rules that disincentivize disabled adults getting married
• Being in the LGBT community
• Societal attitudes towards the sexuality of persons with disabilities
There is a myriad of potential challenges. It is the presenter’s goal to inspire attendees to think more about how AAC can be utilized to increase the quality of life of AAC users. The presenter wants the participants to understand potential barriers and to support whatever steps are necessary for an AAC user to have emotional experiences which are as rich and broad as possible. Furthermore, the presenter wants the participants to understand that many AAC users want a partner and to experience the same intimate bond that most people have the luxury of taking for granted.