AAC

• Introduction to AAC and Literacy
• SLHS 427
• PART ONE
• Literacy and AAC: An Overview
• The literacy experiences of children who use AAC are both the same and different from the experiences of typically developing children
• Literacy skills are essential in the lives of all citizens
• They may be even more important to individuals who use AAC
• Literacy skills provide individuals with
• The opportunity to initiate topics
• Develop ideas
• Provide clarification
• Communicate independently
• Interact with a diverse audience
• Express ideas, thoughts, and feelings
• Other Facts
• Despite the evidence that suggests that individuals who have complex communication needs (CCNs) are able to develop strong literacy skills, the typical outcomes for these individuals are far from encouraging.
• Factors that Affect Literacy Learning
• Learning to read and write requires the integration of knowledge and skills across a variety of domains, including
• Orthographic processing
• Phonological processing
• Context processing
• Meaning processing
• Good Readers:
• Are able to recognize letters and letter sequences automatically
• Are able to recognize sound patterns, manipulate sounds easily, and map sounds to letters (and vice versa) rapidly
• Are able to access word meanings quickly and use context and world knowledge to help with unfamiliar words
• Able to integrate these skills with ease to derive meaning from the text or to encode meaning into text
• Poor Readers
• May have weak knowledge of letter patterns
• May struggle to recognize letters and letter sequences
• May have difficulty with auditory discrimination and phonological awareness activities
• More likely to have limited vocabulary knowledge
• Must devote more attention and resources to basic word recognition and decoding/encoding activities
• This leaves fewer resources to construct the meaning of text and monitor their comprehension
• Factors that affect literacy development in children with CCNs can be divided into two basic categories
• INTRINSIC – within the person
• EXTRINSIC – external to the person
• Intrinsic Factors
• Visual impairments:
• Hearing impairments:
• Motor impairments:
• Cognitive impairments:
• Language impairments:
• Speech impairments:
• Lack of experiences:
• A history of limited participation:
• Challenges in literacy learning may be further complicated by health problems.
• Extrinsic Factors
• Literacy development is affected by a wide range of extrinsic factors related to the environment
• Literacy learning does not occur in isolation – rather it is deeply embedded within a series of interrelated contexts including
• Physical context
• Functional context
• Social context
• Language context
• Cultural context
• The physical and functional contexts for literacy learning
• Children with CCN are reported to have less frequent access to reading materials and significantly less access to writing materials than their peers without disabilities
• The social context for literacy learning
• Not only do children who rely on AAC have fewer literacy experiences than their peers without disabilities, but the quality of these experiences also differs.
• The social context for literacy learning
• Individuals with CCN often have limited (or no) access to their AAC during literacy activities – this means
• The social context is also influenced by the language context – including the language available to the individual who relies on AAC and the language used by partners during literacy activities.
• The language context for literacy learning
• Definition:
• Typical Development
• Differences:
• The cultural context for literacy learning
• One possible explanation for the reduced emphasis on literacy experiences and instruction for individuals with CCNs may be found in parental and teacher expectations.

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• Fostering emergent literacy skills
• Process of developing literacy skills begins very early
• Stage of emergent literacy is the development of literacy skills prior to learning conventional literacy skills
• Storybook readings play an important role in a child’s development of language skills.
• Storybook reading
• Displaced talk
• The stage before the development of conventional literacy is called the STAGE OF EMERGENT LITERACY
• During this stage, children acquire the knowledge and skills that form the underpinnings for the later development of later reading and writing skills. Specifically, they:
• Build language skills
• Begin to make connections between spoken and written language
• Learn the basic conventions of print
• Early storybook reading experiences play an important role in a child’s development of language skills (and thus is a very important component of emergent literacy development)
• The nature of storybook reading is different for children with CCN as compared to their typically developing peers.
• Parents of children who use AAC often choose the book to be read and tend to choose different books each time
• Different books = different experience
• Repeated readings
• Develop comprehension skills
• Make inferences or anticipate events or story lines
• Practice retelling (or narrating)
• Participate in “pretend reading”
• Repeated readings:
• Physical contact with book:
• Limits on development:
• Intervention: Emergent Level
• Providing access to appropriate AAC for emergent literacy activities
• AAC users should always have access to their AAC.

Access to AAC can be done in these ways:

• Incorporating manual signs and gestures into reading
• Using objects to communicate choices during stories
• Providing simple switches programmed with repeated storylines
• Providing low-tech communication boards with appropriate and context-related vocab
• Providing SGDs programmed with appropriate vocab

Adapt books to facilitate and support communicative interactions during story time.

• Present the vocabulary on the device for easier interaction with the story
• Traditional grid displays
• Circular layout
• Visual scenes
• Teaching interaction strategies to literate partners
• Providing access to AAC is not enough
• Reading to students and discussing text serves a number of purposes
• Builds world knowledge
• Scaffolds cognitive development
• Introduces more advanced language concepts, sentence structures, and written genres
• Promotes more advanced comprehension and inference skills
• Illustrates the pleasure of reading which increases motivation for reading instruction
• Teaching interaction strategies to literate partners
• Select appropriate books
• Introduce the topic of the book
• Introduce new vocab as required
• Read the text of the book
• Use time delay (“wait expectancy”)
• Ask appropriate questions
• Model use of AAC and speech
• Respond to communicative attempts
• Encourage the learner to tell the story
• Providing independent access to reading materials
• Strategies
• Easy to access to books
• Offering book choices during free time
• Offering opportunity to request favorite books
• Allow easy page turning
• Incorporate text into daily routine
• Introduce books on tape
• Building narrative skills
• Vocabulary and sentence structures
• Narrative skills
• Building narrative skills
• Functional vocabulary versus reading/literacy vocabulary
• Semantic, syntactic skills, and narrative skills
• Increase opportunities
• Building emergent writing skills
• Children with CCN need to engage in early writing activities
• Lack of access
• Motor impairments
• Needed adaptations
• Computer technology!
• Individuals with CCN require numerous opportunities to engage in writing activities scaffolded by literate adults or children
• “Writing” secret messages
• Drawing pictures and writing stories
• Making signs for a pretend store
• Making birthday cards
• Writing letters or emails
• Phonological Awareness
• Introduced to phonological awareness and letter sounds in preschool, childcare programs, education software, and television shows
• Many children are introduced to rhyming and sound blending
• Introducing these skills early in fun activities will especially benefit children with CCN