Polish context

It was not until 19 July 2019 that the Act on Ensuring Accessibility for Persons with Special Needs was adopted in Poland. The Act  states that public institutions are obliged to ensure accessibility in the area of information and communication and digital.

A draft law has now been drafted about the support system for people with complex communication needs (November 2023) – however, this remains at a project level.

The support system for people with complex communication needs would include: 

1. the obligations of public and private bodies to provide information and communication to persons with complex communication needs; 
2. easy-to-read and comprehensible (ETR) text standards; 
3. county AAC coordinators and local AAC teams; 
4. regional AAC centres and transport aid rentals; 
5. the Polish Institute of Supportive Communication, hereinafter referred to as the “Institute”; 
6. requirements for AAC specialists, ETR editors and text accessibility consultants.

A person with complex communication needs is provided with access to AAC services, including technological solutions for independent communication in Polish.

AAC services include:

• functional assessment; 
• defining the scope and type of support; 
• development of an individual communication system (ISK); 
• the selection, creation and adaptation of communication aids; 
• Individual Communication System (ISK) instruction; 
• educational activities; 
• services aimed at maintaining and developing the functionality of the individual communication system (ISK).

According to a 2021 report, in Poland we have almost no domestic statistical studies, and therefore no verified data on people with special needs in communication, including AAC users. 

Such data was probably never collected. Several existing sources of potential knowledge can be identified, but they will be far from sufficient to obtain an authentic picture of the situation of people with Special Communication Needs in Poland and responsible planning of activities. Assuming the average data that 1% of the population experiences special needs in communication, it can be estimated that there are about 380,000 such people in Poland.

At the moment, there are no effective systemic solutions for access to AAC services in Poland. The access we see is fragmented, barely marked, not fair and equal for everyone.

It depends on:

• subordination to specific judicial structures (AAC  may be recommended in a special education certificate; this is the only option guaranteeing access to AAC by statute),
• the age of the person with a disability (special school students are privileged, because in these institutions the traditions of introducing AAC are the longest, and the competences of the staff are the greatest),
• place of residence (we observe greater availability of AAC services in several larger cities and a few smaller towns; the results of the internal ISAAC-Poland survey also indicate a large inequality of availability in individual voivodships),
• financial status (there are more and more small companies providing paid AAC services on the market; the amount per hour of consultation/intervention varies from 100 to 300 PLN (about 23€-70€), depending on the type of service. For a part of the population, these quotas are exclusionary). Their refund is not established. Many families try to cover these costs with donations (the so-called 1% paid by taxpayers to charity). However, such a financing system is a heavy burden for many families, as they devote a lot of time and effort to obtaining and maintaining this source of funding, which in some cases satisfies only a small part of the needs of a person with a disability.
  

There is also a shortage of prepared staff at all levels of the potential Polish AAC service system. In practice, only in a few places in Poland (educational institutions, rehabilitation service centers) can we find the model of multidisciplinary AAC consultation and intervention. AAC services in Poland usually mean the work of individuals who try to fulfill the tasks of all members of a multidisciplinary team.

In Poland, there are also no regulations regarding the competence of a person who can provide AAC services. Although the obligation to provide such services is imposed on staff of the education system (counselling and guidance centres issuing opinions and certificates, as well as teachers and specialists providing education and therapy to children and pupils with special needs), it has not been specified who can carry out this task. There is no definition of the scope of competences, the standard of education, or the path to obtaining it.

Adjudication of special needs in communication does not take place in Poland. Recently (2017) AAC has been recommended, but only for students in the education system. In the case of the remaining group of people with Special Communication Needs, which according to research constitute the majority of this population – it is simply not practiced. In such a situation, there is no reason to build a system of AAC services, because theoretically there are no recipients of such services. Without proper jurisprudence, this state of affairs is perpetuated, the system is not formally built, and many people do not receive help. The existing fragmented system of adjudication, which is inconsistent and obstructed, is not conducive to sorting out this issue. We need to look at this issue in relation to existing systems of case-law, chronologically in relation to the child, the pupil and the adult