Swiss context

In Switzerland, there is a lack of transmission between the institutions regarding the use of AAC: 

• AAC is absent or misknown in kindergarten institutions; 
• no national recommendation for AAC specialists; 
• no national policies regarding it + gap between the linguistic parts of Switzerland; 
• The Federal Council seems quite reluctant to the idea to train more staff as it esteemed that institutions hosting people in need of AAC, there are sufficient opportunities to train staff.

Develop AAC, inform the public about AAC, help professional and particular to use AAC.

• Train families and professionals and develop a qualitative procedure of certification, democratise and uniformise AAC within institutions.
• Quantify the number of people in need of AAC in Switzerland.

Accessibility, social participation and self- determination of a person calls for;

• The importance of the use and development of AAC in all the social contexts of the person, which implies the accessibility of AAC means and the support of communication partners.
• A complementarity of developmental approaches, still called socio-pragmatic, and behavioral, and for a multimodal use of AAC in production and reception.

Instead, the participation model proposes to assume the competence of persons with disabilities and to propose means and approaches adapted to the person.

Hence the needs to: 

• Know how grants are used in Switzerland.
• List projects.
• Identify communication problems between funders and users with sufficient training opportunities for the staff concerned.

• The number of people requiring augmented and alternative communication (AAC) can only be estimated indirectly and approximately
• Around 10% of adults have major difficulties with reading and writing. 5% in basic numeracy.
• 25% have little or no numeracy skills.
• In 2016, dysphasia affected between 3% and 5% of Swiss people.
• The French Sign Language is used by around 10,000 people in Switzerland.

AAC is especially used in specific environnement with disabled people, autism, ergotherapist, structure which deals with handicap/ FSCMA.

It remains quite absent of kindergarten and primary schools.

Grevesse, P., Bayot, C., Oliveira Cardoso, B., Tiberghien, V., Vandenbulcke, M., Schelstraete, M.-A., & Thomas, N. (2020): Alors on lit? La littérature jeunesse à la portée des enfants à besoins complexes de communication grâce à la lecture interactive et à la communication alternative et améliorée. Tranel, 73, 75-88.

Fontana-Lana, B. (2020). La communication au service de l’autodétermination et de la participation citoyenne. Travaux neuchâtelois de linguistique, 73, 9-26. https://www.unine.ch/files/live/sites/tranel/files/Tranel/73/9-26_Fontana_def.pdf 

Jullien, S. (2020). Le choix des moyens de Communication Alternative et Améliorée : Le cas des communicateurs émergents. Tranel, 73, 27-47. Travaux neuchâtelois de linguistique, 73, 1-8. https://www.unine.ch/files/live/sites/tranel/files/Tranel/73/1-8_Jullien_Marty_def-1.pdf 

Jullien, S. (02.05.2022). CAA : Difficultés et perspectives. Insos blog. https://blog.insos.ch/fr/caa-difficultes-et-perspectives 

Jullien, S., Marty, S. (2020) La Communication Alternative et Améliorée : Un pas vers la participation sociale, l’autodétermination des personnes en situation de handicap de la communication. 

Radio Télévision Suisse (29.11.2023). La dysphasie, le trouble du langage qui touche près de 5% des Suisses. https://www.rts.ch/info/sciences-tech/8053476-la-dysphasie-le-trouble-du-langage-qui-touche-pres-de-5-des-suisses.html  

Roth, F. (2020). Accès à la communication améliorée et alternative. [Interpellation 20.3568] L’Assemblée fédérale – Le Parlement suisse.https://www.parlament.ch/fr/ratsbetrieb/suche-curia-vista/geschaeft?AffairId=20203568 

Roth, F. (2021). Subventions mystérieuses de la Confédération aux hautes écoles pour le développement et la diffusion de la CAA. [Interpellation 20.3568] L’Assemblée fédérale – Le Parlement suisse. https://www.parlament.ch/fr/ratsbetrieb/suche-curia-vista/geschaeft?AffairId=20217585 

Secrétariat d’Etat à la formation, à la recherche et à l’innovation. (2021). Les compétences de base permettent aux adultes de prendre part à l’apprentissage tout au long de la vie. https://www.admin.ch/gov/fr/accueil/documentation/communiques.msg-id-85009.html