Back-to-School AAC Tips for Families

Starting a new school year comes with plenty of moving pieces for any family. But for kids who use augmentative and alternative communication, also known as AAC, there can be an extra layer of preparation: does the device have the vocabulary your child will need for a new classroom, teacher, or friend? Will new staff know how to use it? And what happens when your child’s AAC therapist or school team changes? Ali Steers, MA, CCC-SLP, ATS, speech-language pathologist (SLP), has some practical advice for families preparing for a new school year.

For an AAC user, the more the team can prepare before the first day, the smoother the transition is likely to be. “ I think as much front-loading as possible that the team, the family can do prior to that child stepping foot into school on that first day is really beneficial,” she explains.

Ideally, parents and the school-based SLP work together to support a child’s AAC system, and both know how to access and make appropriate updates to the device. But every school team is different, and not every SLP will be comfortable with parents making changes to the system themselves. That’s okay — the important thing is to make sure everyone is clear about who is responsible for programming, updating, and maintaining the device and how you’ll communicate about changes.

Meet with the school team

Parents don’t have to wait for an IEP meeting to bring the school team together. Steers recommends asking for an informal team meeting, especially when there’s a new teacher, SLP, paraprofessional, or other staff member working with the child. If possible, families can also invite someone from the previous year’s team who knows the child well and can share what helped them transition successfully.

“I actually would recommend that it’s not an IEP meeting,” Steers says. Instead, parents can send a simple email asking the team to come together and talk about the transition. “It doesn’t need to be formal. We don’t need to talk about goals. We don’t need to talk about services. We just need to talk about, ‘Hey, this is my kid. They’ve had all summer off. Maybe they went to ESY, but their schedule’s been kind of upended, and now we’re transitioning back. How can we make this transition easier for my child?’”

Steers recommends reaching out during the week before school starts, when many schools have staff working or professional development, and asking the child’s case manager to bring the team together for a meeting. As she shares, “I’d strongly recommend reaching out to the child’s educational team, whoever their case manager is, and requesting a meeting with all stakeholders present: general education teacher, special education teacher, SLP, OT, PT, paras — as many team members as you can get. That’s going to benefit the child in the long run.”

Use that meeting to introduce your child and talk through how they communicate, including signs, gestures, and other ways of communicating that may not be immediately obvious to a new team member. It can also be a chance to share what helps the child feel safe and comfortable, what can make transitions difficult, and what’s worked well in the past. This can be especially important for emerging AAC users, who may have a harder time communicating that they’re nervous, they’re feeling overwhelmed, or they need help in a new environment.

Make a communication cheat sheet

A simple cheat sheet can give new teachers and staff a quick reference for understanding your child. Include words, signs, gestures, or other communication behaviors that your child uses, especially ones that someone unfamiliar with them might not understand.

Ali says some families have created cheat sheets that explain things like a particular gesture or movement and what it means. This can help staff recognize what your child is communicating instead of assuming they don’t understand or don’t have anything to say.

Program the most important vocabulary first

Your child doesn’t need every possible word or every classroom activity programmed into their AAC system before the first day of school. Instead, think about the people, places, and experiences that will matter most right away.

“We don’t need all school curricular vocabulary as of day one,” Steers explains. “But really looking at what’s relevant for any child as they transition into a new school year.”

That could include their teacher’s name, parents’ names, and names of close friends and other people they’ll interact with regularly. The goal is to make sure your child can talk about what’s happening at school — and tell you about their day when they get home. The same principle can apply to new places and routines. As your child gets settled, the team can continue adding vocabulary that becomes relevant to their day.

Social-emotional first, academics seconds

Steers encourages teams to think about the beginning of the school year as a transition period rather than immediately focusing on academics.

“For that first bit of school, we don’t need to talk so much about literacy. We don’t need to talk so much about math. We don’t need to talk so much about academic goals. Instead, focus on this child as a person and what helps them to make this big transition. Because the reality is, all kids are going to be nervous. All kids are going to be anxious. It’s school starting again. Things are new. It’s different. That’s scary,” she explains.

She advises parents and teams to focus more on the social-emotional piece during the first week or two of school. “How can we transition into this being a safe, comfortable environment for the child? So when it does come time for that academic piece, week two, week three, week four — whenever that happens — that child is calm, regulated, safe, supported, and feels like they can then move on to the learning bit of school.”

If your child is changing school districts or moving from one local education agency (LEA) to another, you may wonder what happens to their AAC device. Every state is different, so you can look up the Education Code in your state to find out more. If you’re in California, the law specifically addresses assistive technology during a school transfer: when a student who uses an assistive technology device leaves one LEA, the former LEA is responsible for ensuring the student has continued access to that device or a comparable device until alternative arrangements for continuous access are made, or for up to two months after the student leaves, whichever comes first.

Steers says she has seen devices travel with students when they move between districts. In one case, a child kept their device until the new district was able to obtain a replacement, and then the device was returned to the previous district.

Ultimately, Steers says, the most important question is not who owns the device but whether the child can continue to communicate. “What matters is that the child has access to the device, and that no one is taking away a device until an adequate replacement is obtained.”

For families who are changing schools or districts, Steers recommends making continuous access part of the transition conversation. The goal is to avoid a situation where a child arrives at school and no one knows where their communication device is. Steers says the responsibility should fall on the districts to coordinate the transition, not on the family.

Note that if your child is using a school-provided AAC device and you withdraw your child from the district to attend a private school or homeschool, then the district will likely ask for the AAC device back as soon as your child is no longer enrolled. You can ask the school district in writing to allow your child to keep their AAC device for a few more months to allow you to source a replacement through insurance. Learn more here.

Note that in many cases, the SLP or another member of the school team handles backups and transfers, so this may not be something you can do yourself if you’re moving to a new school or will have a new SLP. Instead, ask your current SLP and team how the device is backed up, where that backup is stored, and how it will be transferred to a new SLP or school team if the person supporting your child changes. Having a clear plan can help prevent your child from losing important vocabulary or customized settings during a transition.

A new school year means new people, places, routines, and activities to talk about. So what should the SLP add to your child’s AAC system before school starts? And how can the team decide which names, photos, and places are most useful?

Be thoughtful about using real photos

Adding photos of classmates, teachers, and other people to an AAC device might seem like an obvious way to help a child talk about the people in their life. But Steers says there are some important reasons to be thoughtful about how — and whether — those photos are used.

One concern is that the child could end up using a page of people as a photo album rather than as a way to communicate. For example, a school team might take the class roster and have all of the students line up on the first day of school to take individual photos, then add those pictures to the child’s device. But Steers says the goal is for a person’s name to function as a word — not as a picture of that person.

As Steers explains, if a child wants to communicate, “I went to lunch with Bobby,” ‘Bobby’ is a word. “‘Bobby’ is not the picture of Bobby.” But when a picture is attached to that word, the child may instead use the page to look at and activate pictures of their friends because they’re interested in the photos themselves.

“We like humans. We like human connection. We like looking at pictures. We like looking at photo albums,” Steers says. “And some kids will turn that people page, that friends page, that teachers page into a photo album where they’re looking at all their friends and they’re activating buttons with their friends’ pictures and names not as words but more as, ‘This is my friend and I’m interested in this picture; let’s talk about it.’” The goal, she says, is for the picture or symbol to function as a word that the child can use to communicate.

Photos can become “conversation stealers”

There’s another potential problem with adding real photos to an AAC system: they can become the focus of the conversation instead of supporting it.

“I’ve worked with kids who’ve had devices for a long time,” Steers says. “They have pictures of their friends from 10 years ago in their ‘first grade friends’ folder.” If a child goes into that folder and finds a picture of a friend from first grade, the conversation can quickly shift to the photo itself.

“If they go into their ‘first grade friends’ folder and they find their picture of Sally when she was in first grade, everyone says, ‘Oh my gosh, Sally was so little. Sally, look at you, look at your pigtails.’” The same thing can happen with photos of school staff. But in that scenario, “the conversation ends up being about the picture and not about this is a word that the child is using for communication purposes,” she explains.

Consider using names and Bitmojis

If a child is likely to use a people page as a photo album or if photos are If a child is likely to use a people page as a photo album or if photos are likely to become a distraction, Steers recommends considering one of two alternatives. The first is using the person’s name as a whole word. “So Sally is just S-A-L-L-Y. Sally,” she says. If a child has enough alphabetic knowledge to read the name, that’s a good method to use.

This approach can also support literacy development for some children. Steers says, “I’ve worked with kids with emerging alphabetic knowledge, but who are very, very socially motivated, and when we program in names with whole words like that, we’ve actually seen them develop their alphabetic knowledge skills faster and better because they are so socially motivated to talk about their friends,” she says.

Another option is using Bitmojis instead of photographs. For example, the team could create a Bitmoji based on the person’s general appearance and use that image on the child’s device. Steers notes that creating these images is now relatively quick with online tools. One benefit is that the representation can remain consistent as the child gets older.

Keep privacy in mind

There can also be privacy considerations when adding real photos and names of other students to a child’s AAC device. Some families may not want their child’s picture or name added to another student’s device, particularly if that device travels between home and school. “Using either whole words or Bitmojis can be a really nice workaround to support a child’s language skills but also make sure that we’re in compliance with people’s preferences and rules,” she says.

The need for new vocabulary can become especially important when a child is moving from elementary school to middle school, from middle school to high school, or to a new school district. Suddenly, they may have classes and activities that weren’t part of their previous schedule — things like health, nutrition, robotics, or technology.

Steers shares why programming new classes, teachers, schedules, and key vocabulary ahead of time — and modeling AAC before day one — helps students successfully navigate new grades and environments.

Key tips:

• Program the child’s new classes on day one. Add relevant classes and activities — such as nutrition, robotics, or technology — to the child’s school schedule or activities page so they can talk about where they’re going and what they’re doing.
• Prioritize the people who matter most. The device doesn’t need every student in the grade programmed in. Start with relevant teachers, friends, parents, and support staff the child will interact with regularly.
• Introduce new vocabulary before school starts. Don’t just add new words to the device. Talk about the new teachers, classes, and routines with the child and model the vocabulary on their device.
• Use a back-to-school meeting as practice. If the child attends a team meeting before school starts, introduce new teachers and staff while showing the child where their names and other relevant vocabulary are located on the device. It could also happen during a speech therapy session, but it doesn’t have to.

As Steers highlights, programming the vocabulary is only part of the process. “That’s half of it,” she explains. The other half is using that vocabulary with, to, and around the child before school starts. For example, the team might talk about a teacher, point to that teacher’s name or Bitmoji on the device, and model how that vocabulary can be used. “I’m talking about Mrs. Brown, and through that process, I am now teaching you that if you would like to talk about Mrs. Brown, this is the word that we’re using for her. This represents her.”

Add quick-fire phrases for things your child needs to say quickly

Some AAC devices also have a way to store frequently used phrases so a child doesn’t have to navigate through multiple pages when they need to communicate something quickly.

“Most devices have ‘quick-fire’ words or phrases that are really relevant to that child,” Steers says. “For some children, it’s ‘I need space.’ For some children, it’s ‘I need the bathroom.’ For some children, it’s ‘I need a sensory break.’”

These phrases should be individualized based on what the child needs to communicate quickly. This concept isn’t limited to high-tech AAC devices, either. Similar quick-access messages can be created using low-tech communication systems, such as a help sheet or folder.

Steers gives the example of a child who has a medical need that requires frequent repositioning: “If I had hip surgery over the summer and I need you to reposition me every 15 minutes because otherwise I have a lot of pain, then ‘Please reposition me’ is going to be a quick-fire that we’re going to make sure that child has available to them on day one.”

When a new teacher, para, OT, PT, or other staff member joins the team, they need to know more than where the AAC device is. So who provides that training, and how can parents make sure new staff know how to support their child’s communication?

Steers explains why AAC training, shared expectations, IEP consultation, and ongoing collaboration help ensure students receive consistent communication support across settings.

Key takeaways:

• Steers recommends bringing together the people who regularly work with the child — including teachers, paras, parents, the student when appropriate, and other school personnel — for an initial AAC training at the beginning of the school year. “What we want are shared understandings coming into the school year, so that we don’t get halfway through the school year and then there’s a teacher who says, ‘This kid has a modeling device. I’ve never seen it.’ We want everyone to understand coming in: these are the expectations. This is the language the child is using. This is how they’re using it. These are the strategies we’re using to support their language growth. So ideally, that’s happening in the first 30 days, and that’s done by whoever the relevant trainer would be.”
• Make sure everyone understands the child’s system and communication approach. Training should cover how the child accesses their device, how the system works, what their partner or modeling device is, why modeling matters, and how to model AAC.
• Training can look different depending on the team. The person providing the training might be the private SLP, the school-based SLP, or a combination of the previous and current team members. Steers says it should depend on who knows the child and their AAC system best.
• Don’t make training a one-and-done event. “Hopefully that child has consultation minutes that are written into their IEP. I recommend an hour a month where the SLP, or whoever’s ‘quarterbacking’ the AAC piece for that child, is coming in once a month to do follow-up observations, consultations, trainings — that they’re making sure that we’re all moving in the right direction.”

Can parents ask for the "logs" of the training?

The answer is yes, parents can ask for logs of the training. However, Steers strongly encourages parents to participate in AAC training whenever possible. Parents can also invite other people who regularly communicate with their child, including teachers, paraprofessionals, and, when appropriate, peers or the student themselves.

For older students, peers may sometimes participate in training, and a student may even help co-train them. For younger children, that’s less likely, but Steers says it can still be valuable to give the child an opportunity to share their perspective, preferences, and goals for the school year if that’s appropriate for them.

“The more involved we can get parents, the better,” Steers says. If a parent can’t attend in person, they may be able to join by Zoom. If that’s not possible, parents can request training logs, notes, or other documentation about what was discussed. Steers also notes that, with appropriate consent and school policies, a training meeting could potentially be recorded and transcribed so parents can review what was covered.

Having that information allows parents to follow up if something important was missed. “Maybe we forgot something. Maybe the parent comes back and says, ‘Hey, you forgot to talk about this really important thing.’ Yep, thank you. Let’s make sure that we send an email to the team. They know about that.”

AAC training shouldn’t happen in isolation

For Steers, the bigger goal is ongoing collaboration between everyone supporting the child. “The collaboration piece for an AAC user is truly integral to making AAC work long term,” she says, because we don’t want the child to think the device is only for communicating with their therapist in a session.

“If we only have the SLP who sits in a room with a kid and works on AAC and then sends them back into their school day, and there’s no interaction between the SLP and the rest of the school team aside from an annual IEP meeting, then we’re gonna have a kid who thinks that the purpose of their device is to talk to the SLP in their treatment room for an hour or whatever that is a week.”

What to do if a teacher says, "Oh, we’ve had lots of kids with a device”

It’s the first week of school, you’re meeting your child’s new teacher, and you mention that your child uses AAC. “Oh, I’ve had lots of kids with a device,” they say. Great . . . or is it? Before you move on, Steers says it’s worth taking a few minutes to introduce the teacher to your child and how they use AAC, because knowing AAC is one thing and knowing your kid is another.

“If I were the parent, I would say, ‘Oh, I’m so glad you have experience with AAC. That’s amazing. I would love for you to meet my child, and I would love to show you their layout and show you how we use it to interact with and around them, so we can make sure that we’re all on the same page.’”

Different adults may have different ideas about how the device should be used. “The reality of AAC is that some people use AAC in different ways. If we don’t have a shared understanding of, ‘This is how we are using AAC to talk to, with, and around this particular student, this is what works best for this particular student,’” Steers says, then the team could end up with very different approaches.

Those differences can become a problem over time. So even if a teacher says, “Yep, I know devices, no problem,” Steers says parents can still make the case for a brief conversation about their individual child and their specific needs.

Can I (or someone else from the team) make changes to my child’s device?

Steers says parents shouldn’t necessarily have to wait for the SLP every time their child needs a new word added to their AAC device, although that will often depend on the SLP. Once the team has agreed on how the system is organized and everyone has received appropriate training, she believes trained team members should be able to make programming changes themselves. The key is making sure everyone understands how the device is organized and how new vocabulary should be added.

“While I encourage everyone to program, I think it’s that mentorship feedback process that we provide along the way. . . . I’m coming in and I’m providing the coaching and the feedback, hopefully, to help and guide the team in how to program so that that device stays more organized,” she says.

And once again, she comes back to the importance of collaboration: “Having a conversation again, the collaboration piece, super, super, super important with our AAC users.” If you’re not sure what your SLP prefers, or if you have a new SLP, it’s important to have that conversation so you know how to move forward.

For a child who uses AAC, going back to school isn’t just about getting comfortable with a new teacher or classroom. It’s also about making sure AAC feels like a normal, accepted way to communicate. Steers shares a simple first-day strategy teachers can use to set that tone — and help classmates see the device as just another way of talking.

Model AAC from day one. Steers says children often learn how to use their devices by watching the people around them use AAC. If a paraprofessional, a teacher, or another communication partner has a partner device and uses it throughout the day, the child gets to see that AAC is a real way to communicate with people at school — not something they’re expected to figure out and use independently. “Children will use their device the way that they experience their device being used,” Steers says.

Don’t expect the child to be the only person using AAC. Steers says there’s an unrealistic expectation that an AAC user should simply start using their device spontaneously, especially when they’re the only AAC user in the classroom. Instead, she encourages teams to ask themselves: who is using AAC? Are the teachers modeling it? Are peers using it? “Until we normalize [an] AAC device as another accepted mode of communication in the classroom, then that child has no reason to pick up their device and be the only AAC user in the classroom,” she says.

Use peer curiosity as an opportunity to build understanding. Steers says classmates may naturally want to try a device after seeing their teacher use one. When they do, they may quickly realize that communicating through AAC can take practice, which can help them develop empathy for their classmate. “Inevitably, the peers will try to use it to talk and realize, ‘Hey, this is challenging,’ and then they develop empathy for their peer’s mode of communication,” she says.

Have the teacher model the device in front of the class. On the first day of school, Steers recommends that the teacher model using an AAC device with the whole class. Ideally, the teacher would have a partner device, book, or system to model with. In some cases, the teacher may ask permission to use the child’s device, but some advocates caution that doing so can feel like “stealing” the child’s voice. Using their partner device, the teacher can say something simple to the whole class. It could be a short greeting, such as “I’m so glad that we are here,” or, “I’m excited that we’re all in sixth grade together.” Steers says, “It doesn’t need to be a long, complex message. What we need to do is validate that child’s mode of communication.”

Steers specifically recommends that the teacher, rather than the parent, be the person to model AAC in front of classmates because the teacher is the leader in the classroom. When students see their teacher using the device, they get the message that AAC is accepted and appropriate — and they may become curious enough to try a partner device themselves. Here’s a video from AssistiveWare that helps teachers set up a Proloquo in the classroom and another from The Autism Helper YouTube channel with more teacher tips for back to school that you could share.

Build AAC use into the IEP. Steers says that ideally, the accommodations section of the IEP should make clear that school staff will have access to a partner or modeling system that uses the same AAC system as the child’s. She also recommends wording AAC goals around consistent aided language stimulation — an evidence-based technique for modeling language in which a communication partner speaks while pointing to symbols or words on an AAC device. This gives the AAC user an opportunity to see their communication system used in authentic, everyday situations. For example, the goal could say, “When provided consistent aided language stimulation throughout the day, the child will . . .” That wording makes it clear that teaching language isn’t solely the child’s responsibility.

Help the team get excited to learn AAC. Steers says parents can help set this tone during the back-to-school team meeting by encouraging teachers to try it themselves. Rather than presenting AAC as another difficult responsibility, she encourages teams to see it as an opportunity to connect with the child. “You have an AAC user in your classroom. This is so cool. You’re going to learn a lot,” she says. “It’s different, but you get to learn a lot.” Her goal is to “get teachers excited, get teachers motivated, get teachers interested in learning, and not make it a have to, but make it a want to.”