Should your setting offer augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)? Yes: AAC is not a good practice left to the initiative of a few professionals. Specialist settings (care, education and support services) need to make sure that everyone they support who needs it has access to communication. Here is what a setting-wide AAC plan should cover, and a method to get started.
Why communication is a right
Articles 2 and 21 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) recognise augmentative and alternative modes of communication and freedom of expression. Making access to communication a priority follows directly from them.
It is also a matter of protection: people who are prevented from communicating are prime targets for abuse, because they cannot report it.
What a setting-wide AAC plan should cover
A setting needs to take up AAC fully for everyone it supports who has specific communication needs. In practice, this means four areas of work.
1. Assess communication needs systematically
Each setting should commit to a whole-setting approach to assess communication needs systematically and give itself the means to meet them. The assessment follows the Participation Model: it is used to identify potential and levers, never to conclude that a person is ‘not ready’. There is no age limit and there are no prerequisites. How to carry out this assessment in practice is covered in Setting up AAC as a team.
2. Write the right to communicate into the setting’s documents
The setting’s key documents should state the right of access to communication explicitly: its plan or statement of aims, admission agreement, welcome booklet, house rules, and the residents’ and families’ forum. It is one of the easiest points for an inspection or quality review to check, so one of the first to update.
3. Make means of communication available at all times
Symbols, signs, language boards, tablets with text-to-speech: what matters is not one particular tool but a set of principles. The means of communication is the person’s voice. It is personal, available all day, in every place and with every communication partner, and not kept for one slot in the timetable. The approach is multimodal: several means complement each other, with no hierarchy (see What is AAC?).
4. Train the teams and change practice
Communication partners (professionals, families, people close to the person) need training to bring AAC into every interaction.
Getting started: a 6-step method
- Take stock. List the people you support who have specific communication needs and the means they actually have day to day.
- Name an AAC lead and get the management on board: AAC is a whole-setting project, not one professional’s job.
- Update the setting’s key documents: plan or statement of aims, admission agreement, welcome booklet, house rules, agenda of the residents’ and families’ forum.
- Put tools in place straight away, even simple ones: an aided language board displayed in every room already changes daily life (see the kit below).
- Train teams and families, and write the training into your staff development plan.
- Link up with local AAC expertise: your speech and language therapy service and, for the most complex needs, specialist AAC services.
For assessment, the AAC lead’s role, partner training and follow-up, see Setting up AAC as a team.
Start now: free printable materials
Even before choosing an app, simple, free printable materials let you lay the foundations of AAC this week. Three are enough to get started.
An aided language board
Displayed in the room or placed on the table, it lets the whole team point to symbols during interactions, without a device. It is the most accessible starting point for AAC in daily life.
A visual schedule
Structuring time reduces anxiety, helps people anticipate and builds independence, especially for autistic people or people with a learning disability. Each setting adapts it to its own times and activities.
A picture sequence
For recurring activities (meals, tidying up, washing), it lets the person follow the steps and act without depending on a spoken instruction.
Download the printable materials: a communication board, the Pictalk Buddy vocabulary booklets and sequences for everyday tasks, no sign-up needed. To go further: Making a communication board and Visual supports: schedule, sequences, timer.
Frequently asked questions
Do we have to buy tablets?
No. No particular tool is required: AAC can start with symbols, signs and a printed aided language board. Digital tools complement the approach.
Who can support our setting?
Your local speech and language therapy service, specialist AAC organisations and the teams that already equip settings day to day, such as Pictalk. For teams, Buddy Pro, already used by more than 140 health and social care settings, lets you organise the people you support into groups and view each person’s communication report directly.
Would you like to review your setting’s situation and see how to get started in practice? Book a call with the team.
Pictalk Buddy brings together AAC boards, a visual schedule, guided sequences and notebooks, with the same symbols, on Android, iOS, the web and the watch. A pay-what-you-want app, developed by a non-profit association. Discover Buddy
Sources
- United Nations, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, articles 2 and 21.