1. Augmentative and Alternative
Communication Systems
Cook and Hussey, Chapter 11
Damian Gordon

2. What is Assistive Technology?
 “Any product, instrument,
equipment or technical
system used by a disabled
or elderly person, made
specially or existing on the
market, aimed to prevent,
compensate, relieve or
neutralise the deficiency, the
inability or the handicap.”
International ISO-9999
Standard

3. Last Time

4. Introduction
 AAC are “designed to ameliorate the
communication problems of people who
have severe speech and language
impairments across the age span.”

5. Introduction
 It’s important to remember that…
 Language is any conventional system
of arbitrary symbols organized
according to a set of rules.
 Speech is the oral expression of
langauge

6. Disabilities Affecting Speech,
Language, and Communication
 Dysarthria is a disorder of motor
speech control resulting from central or
peripheral nervous system damage that
causes weakness, slowness, and a
lack of coordination of the muscles
necessary for speech production.

7. Disabilities Affecting Speech,
Language, and Communication
 Apraxia is a disorder affecting the
coordination of motor movements
involved in producing speech caused
by a central nervous system
dysfunction.

8. Disabilities Affecting Speech,
Language, and Communication
 Aphasia is a language disorder that
occurs as a result of a cerebral
vascular accident to Traumatic Brain
Injury (TBI). It can affect both
expression of spoken and written
language, e.g. some people can forget
names, places, or events. Others may
lose the ability to understand spoken
langauge.

9. Disabilities Affecting Speech,
Language, and Communication
 Other conditions ameliorated by ACC
– Cerebral Palsy
– Autism
– Stoke
– Spinal Cord Injury
– Degenerative Diseases

10. AAC Assessment and Evaluation
 A predictive assessment means that you
attempt to understand a person’s needs and
status both today and predict their future
needs.
 A serial assessment is a continuing
evaluation to meet changing needs.
 A curriculum-based assessment is
continuous in classrooms to help coordinate
AAC interventions with the achievement of
educational goals.

11. Barriers to Participation
 Consider the case of a child with a speech
difficulty, if their school that purchases a
speech-generating device (SGD), the child
will have to leave the device at school when
they go home.
 This creates a real barrier into providing full
societal participation.
 But school typically allow student to take
home musical instruments, why is this?

12. Assessing Representation
 A unique problem in the domain of AAC is
determining the symbols an individual can
use to communicate.

13. Light-Tech AAC Options

14. Mid-Tech AAC Devices

15. Mid-Tech AAC Tools

16. High-Tech Dedicated AAC Tools

17. High-Tech Non-Dedicated AAC Tools

18. Communication Software

19. High-Tech AAC Systems
 Human-Technology Interface
– The interface allows the client to access the low-,
medium, or high-tech device.
– These can be joysticks, keyboards, switches,
mouses, etc.
– Most selection sets use visible symbols, so
people with visual impairments need an
alternative approach.

20. Vocabulary Retrieval Techniques
 Abbreviation expansion
 Word prediction
 Word completion

21. Vocabulary Retrieval Techniques
 Instant phrases are those used frequently for
greetings, conversational repairs (e.g. “that’s
not what I mean”), or similar actions; these
are often encoded as single keystrokes, or
near the beginning of a scanning matrix.
 Coding of words, sentences or phrases on
the basis of their meaning is known as
Semantic Encoding or Minspeak.

22. Vocabulary Retrieval Techniques
 A picture of an apple could mean “food”
 A picture of the sun could mean “morning”
 Then a picture of an apple and the sun could
mean “What’s for breakfast?”

23. Mainstream Technologies
 e-mail
– because of the asynchronous nature of e-mail, a
conversation typically takes place at a slower rate
– It allows people to communicate without being
present in the same physical location
– AAC users report that they enjoy establishing
relationships with people who experience them
first as people and second as having a disability

24. Mainstream Technologies
 Mobile phones
– As phones get more open-source leads to a
greater diversity in software tools such as text-to-
speech, voice recognition, and downloadable
user profiles
– Cameras being built into phones as help those
CCN users

25. Vocabulary Selection
 Once an AAC is selected, it is necessary to
create an individual vocabulary set for
programming into the device.
 Some conversation categories are presented
in the following pair of slides.

26. Vocabulary Selection (1 of 2)
Category Sample Vocabulary
Initiating and Interaction Hey, I’ve got something to say
Check this out
Come talk to me
May I help you?
Greetings Hello, I’m pleased to meet you.
Where have you been? I’ve been waiting
forever.
What’s happening?
Response to greetings I’m fine.
Great, how are you?
Not so hot, and you?
Requests I’d like a_____________ (object, event)
I’d like to go to__________(place, event)

27. Vocabulary Selection (2 of 2)
Category Sample Vocabulary
Information Exchange What time is it?
I have a question.
The concert begins at 8pm.
Commenting I agree. / I disagree.
What a great idea!
Uh-huh.
OK.
Wrap-Up/farewell Well, gotta go. See you later.
Bye, nice talking to you
Conversational Repair Let’s start over.
That’s not what I meant.
You misunderstood me.

28. Vocabulary Selection
 Vocabulary needs to vary by context,
communication mode, and individual
characteristics.
 Good stuff at;
– http://aac.unl.edu/vbstudy

29. Physical Skill Development
 AAC devices require physical skill to operate
them effectively.
 It takes practice.
 It is important to distinguish between the
physical skills required to use an AAC device
from the communication skills needed to
employ it.

30. Communicative Competence
 Depends on many factors.
 The context in the HAAT mode affects
competence in several ways.
 The partner and his or her skill in listening,
the environment of use, and the cultural
factors all contribute to or detract from
communicative competence.

31. Example

32. Check out the OATS site
 http://www.oatsoft.org/Software/Software/by-
category/Repository/Function/AAC