Assessments are incredibly important. Not only do assessments help providers identify a child’s individual strengths and needs, they can also highlight exactly what kinds of interventions and supports are needed — and this is especially useful when it comes to AAC.
So if you haven’t already, the first step to incorporating AAC into your child’s IEP is to request an AAC assessment. If a speech-language pathologist or other professional indicates that your child would benefit from AAC, you’ll want to go through the formal process of having an assessment, the results of which will be discussed in your IEP meeting.
As a parent, you have the right to request that different devices be included in the assessment so that your child can have a trial of multiple programs. You can also request video of your child using the devices. Does one device have very limited words available for use? Is a device missing a keyboard or letterboard to offer support for typing? Madel recommends having a long-term vision of how the system will support your child, giving them opportunities for growth rather than plateauing because they have limited choices in how to communicate.
Here’s what SLP Ali Steers says about the attitude parents should have when going into an assessment:
An assessment provides an opportunity for you, your child, and the IEP team to get a sense of the best tool for your child to access language and communication. Madel recommends that you talk to the assessor about what motivates your child; what would they be most likely to want to communicate about? That can give the assessor a better sense of how AAC is working for your child.
It can be very helpful to have an AAC specialist attend the IEP meeting to present the assessment results and potential AAC devices, but Madel emphasizes that you and your child’s educators should all be involved in the discussion. “A good AAC assessment includes the entire team because it's the entire team that needs to implement it,” she says. “You can have the best AAC system in the world, but if you don’t know how to use it with your child, and everyone around your child doesn’t know how to use it, you’re not going to have a lot of success. It’s the implementation that’s the hard part.”
Phrases: A typical phrase you can use in an IEP goal is “When provided unrestricted access to AAC, the student will—” for example, answer questions in response to a reading passage. Madel says, “If there’s some type of communicating involved or demonstrating knowledge, there’s an opportunity to potentially put AAC in there as a modality.”
Madel likes the phrase “unrestricted access to AAC” because there’s the concern that a teacher might take away a device if they perceive that the student is distracted. A child should always have their communication device in front of them. This means IEP teams may also want to think about “backup” communication. For example, if a child’s device runs out of battery, or substitute staff have not yet been trained on how to use it, could other low-tech visual supports be available? These can be written into the IEP as accommodations.
Undivided Education Advocate Lisa Carey recommends the phrase “using multimodal communication” in IEP goals so that whether a child is using AAC, sign language, gestures, word approximations, or any other form of communication, they can be working on their goals. See the end of this article for plenty of sample IEP goals that incorporate the use of AAC into both academic and social goals with peers.
Skills required to use the device: In addition to writing IEP goals that involve using AAC to communicate questions and answers, consider writing goals about using the AAC system itself. Does the student know how to adjust the volume as appropriate or plug in the device when it needs to be charged? Those skills can also be written as IEP goals.
Another thing to include in an IEP is parent and teacher training. You can ask that regular consult minutes with an AAC specialist be provided because SLPs don’t always have adequate training in AAC. In the IEP, this might look like specifying a certain number of minutes per month of AAC consult to be provided to the school staff (including the SLP) that is working with your child. And the same goes for you and your family! Learning an AAC device takes time — a little parent training on how to use the device with your child can go a long way.
One way to track independent communication, Madel says, is to keep a log of everything your child says without any adult prompting. “And that could be with sign language, it can be with verbal speech, it can be with AAC,” she says. “The modality of communication isn’t as important as getting really good at just recognizing what is spontaneous language.” By tracking your child’s spontaneous language, you can see whether the work they’re doing at school is translating to real skills in communicating.
The goal is to help kids recognize that they can have ideas on their own and communicate those ideas without being prompted or asked questions first. When kids can say whatever is on their mind with someone else, it helps them connect.
“Sure, we can give scaffolded levels of prompting and support, but the end goal should always be independence,” Madel says. She admits that it can be difficult to see what your child can actually accomplish without adult support, perhaps only single words, but building that foundation of independence is essential to learning how to use AAC for real communication, not just memorized routines. Building independence also helps ensure that those skills translate to environments other than the classroom.
SLP Ali Steers agrees that the goal of AAC is to provide more autonomy:
Even though educators largely see AAC devices as tools to work on academics, it’s essential for everyone who works with a child to approach communication more broadly and find what motivates them. After all, communication is central to life.
Education Advocate Lisa Carey puts it this way: “It’s important that AAC is not used to simply ‘test’ a child academically. It should be considered the child’s voice and be used in all areas of the day, not just academics. Most kids will not want to use the device if it is just used for testing.”
Madel says, “If we make all of these goals super academic, we’re missing students because we’re not focusing on things they’re motivated by. The first step in communication and understanding the power of an AAC system is, ‘Wow, this is like this magic box that gets me whatever I want. I wanted to watch that YouTube video, and I got it. I wanted to listen to my favorite song on Spotify. I did it. I have the power to communicate what I need and what I want and what I’m thinking about on my own.’”
Keep in mind that if AAC is only used to focus on subjects that kids aren’t that motivated to communicate about, it can appear as if AAC is not working. When we teach kids that words have power and can help them change their environment, that sets the foundation for communicating about a wide variety of subjects.
Madel reminds us that while it can take patience and time and energy, she believes every child can learn to communicate:
Social-Emotional
Self-Advocacy
Writing
Communication
Language
Reading
Pre-Vocational
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