Never give up with AAC

Speech and clinical speech therapist, early childhood development and support specialist

The UNICEF Special School and Educational Centre in Słupsk

Local special-needs school run by local council

Education and therapy of children with special educational needs, speech therapy, clinical speech therapy, communication difficulties caused by autism or intellectual disability, early childhood development support especially problems with communication.

As a special need teacher and speech therapist I am familiar with those methods since I started working at the school about 18 years ago.

I use AAC methods when I work with my students with autism or those whose speech did not develop in early childhood.

The main benefit of using AAC is the possibility for non-verbal people to express their needs and emotions. A child or an adult who feels understood and whose needs are satisfied feels safe and comfortable.

Using AAC helps a lot for children with autism and during early childhood development support classes. When children start communicating with a teacher, they open and show that they trust them, because they know they are understood. It improves the whole process of education and therapy.

AAC methods are pretty well known in the educational field in my country but not all teachers have access to specialist devices.

Yes, I think so. We should be open-minded as we face more and more difficult cases in our practice and also there are better and more modern software to use.

• AAC library
• ARASAAC

We should never give up, try different methods, ask questions, cooperate with other specialists and the parents.