A broadside is one sheet, printed both sides, made to be carried into a room and handed to someone. This one compresses the AAC Is Not a Last Resort Why Sheet.
Side A carries the refutation and the three qualifiers of the right — individualized, working, at all times. Side B carries what to say when the answer is “not yet”, and what to ask for in the room.
Free to print, copy, change and share. CC0 1.0, no permission needed.
Side A of B
AAC Is Not a Last Resort
A communication system is not a reward for proving you deserve one. “They need to talk first” is a prerequisite — and the speech-language profession’s own body says prerequisites are the error, not the safeguard.
A child does not earn
the right to speak by speaking.
everybody communicates · the question is who opened a channel
“Numerous studies have demonstrated that the use of AAC does not interfere with speech development and actually has been shown to support such development.”
National Joint Committee for the Communication Needs of Persons With Severe Disabilities · ASHAAccess is a written right. Read its three qualifiers, because each one answers a way the right gets quietly withdrawn.
Chosen for this child — not whatever the district already owns a licence for, and not the system that happened to be in the cupboard.
Charged, repaired, and programmed with the words this child actually wants. A broken system is a withdrawn one.
Home, playground, bus, assembly, lunch. Not only in therapy, not only at school, not once the aide has a free hand.
- “Let’s see how speech develops first.” — a prerequisite. The NJC says criteria applied in advance preclude consideration of individual needs.
- “They’re not ready for a device.” — readiness is an a priori criterion. So is a diagnosis. So is an age.
- “We don’t want to discourage them from talking.” — AAC does not interfere with speech. The profession’s own position is that it supports it.
- “We tried it and it didn’t work.” — ask who was modelling it, how often, and for how long. If nobody was, it was not tried.
stimpunks.org/why/aac
free to print, copy, change and share · CC0 1.0
reverse
Side B of B
“Not ready”, “hasn’t shown intent’, “not a candidate yet” are all the same move. The NJC names it:
- “Eligibility determinations based on a priori criteria violate recommended practice principles by precluding consideration of individual needs.”
- A prerequisite is an a priori criterion. So is a diagnosis, a cognitive score, and an age.
- “Communication is essential across the lifespan, thus it is inappropriate to restrict access … on the basis of chronological age.” That closes both doors — too young, and too late.
The most common way AAC fails is not refusal. It is a device handed over with nobody using it.
- Nobody learns a language they have never seen anyone speak. A child given a talker where every adult communicates by mouth is learning a language in isolation.
- A systematic review of partner modelling found gains in pragmatics, semantics, syntax and morphology — Sennott, Light & McNaughton, 2016.
- So “we tried AAC and it didn’t work” is usually a description of the adults.
- what the prerequisite is, and where it is written
- a robust system, not a starter one — can they say no?
- who is modelling it, how often, and for how long
- that it goes everywhere the child goes
- what happens the day it breaks
- that speech and AAC be supported, not traded
The message existed. The channel was closed, and nobody opened another one.
Pattern 30 · Communication Bandwidth · Stimpunks Foundationfree to print, copy, change and share — no permission needed
CC0 1.0 · no rights reserved
Foundation
One sheet · print double-sided · bring it to the meeting · share freely