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3. Low and High Tech AAC Strategies

What assistive technology can we expect individuals with AS to use to communicate during their lives? What devices and strategies should AAC specialists recommend to families? These and other questions remain unanswered.

The literature supports the use of communication aids, at least with children. Nevertheless, Miller's recent report on 176 families who are raising children with AS¹⁵ revealed that while most children use signs and gestures, only forty percent (40%) use picture boards and only twenty percent (20%) use electronic communication devices. An additional thirty-eight percent (38%) reportedly use "other" non-electronic techniques. According to people I interviewed, even children who have devices may not use them functionally to communicate.

Table II (not included) focuses on communication outcomes that may be achieved using AAC aids, devices and other assistive technology. Listed are examples of low and high tech strategies that, when introduced using a functional intervention approach, may improve the interaction experiences of persons with AS and their communication partners. It seems likely that AAC aids and devices (both electronic and non-electronic) can enhance the communication ability of individuals with AS, which may, in turn, enable them to participate more actively in their school, home and work settings.

It is important to keep in mind that desired outcomes for adults are the sum of desired communication outcomes for infants, toddlers, preschoolers, school-aged children and adolescents. The framework summarized in Tables I and II (not included) represents a continuum that relates what we do today to what we do tomorrow.²⁰ Therefore, suggestions are not to be perceived as strategies appropriate only for discrete ages and stages. Rather, each age and stage builds upon the next.

This article appears in ACN Volume 8, # 3.

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